As of this , we asked , country head Luxembourg at State Street, about key issues in the industry for 2024. Lamanna told Delano:
“Data management is one of my top priorities in 2024 and the coming years. While investment in enhanced data management and the technology has been on European asset managers’ radar for several years, it is now starting to pay off. State Street’s recent research finds 50% of managers in Europe said they are halfway or more towards completing their ‘data transformation journey,’ ahead of their peers in APAC and North America, where fewer respondents (43% and 44% respectively) believed themselves to be so far advanced with their data strategies.”
“Despite progress, more work is needed. For example, just 19% in Europe were happy with the overall accuracy of data used across their operations, while more than a third had trouble getting systems compatible with multiple data formats and sources and with their data security.”
“Return on these investments are also encouraging: A fifth of European asset managers who claimed to have such strategies in place attributed revenue growth of more than 20% to them, 31% said the same of their investment performance, while 32% said it had led to 20% higher customer satisfaction. These rewards are only currently being reaped by approximately a quarter of managers in Europe, who have holistic data strategies in place.”
“However, 72% are in the process of planning or implementing them, in anticipation of the kinds of performance improvement. So investment in technology, specialist staff and expert partners towards rationalising and integrating data strategies across business areas is clearly going to be a theme of asset management operations in Europe over the coming years.”
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“Towards this end, European asset managers are increasingly looking for specialist external partners to work with them on data provision and data technology, more so than American or Asian managers, who were more focused on internal data talent.”
“However, technology was considered the most important area for investment in improved data capabilities across all regions and we can expect to see significant future investment by managers in Europe, as 39% of them believe they need to upgrade at least half of their existing data tech systems, while 77% said at least a quarter of their current systems need to be improved.”
Lamanna stated: “The emerging artificial intelligence technologies are key to these improvements and European managers specifically expect them to transform their trading operations, risk analytics and cyber security over the next two to five years. Therefore, I expect AI also to be a key topic for our clients and thus for me in 2024.”