Digitisation proving positive for finance companies

Finance companies who invested in digitisation during 2021 are already experiencing the positive effects, according to a new survey by Broadridge Financial Solutions.

Broadridge surveyed 750 financial institutions, with total assets or AUM of companies in the sample ranging from USD$1 billion to over $500 billion globally. They were asked a variety of questions about their implementation of digital transformation and technological uptake.

44% of firms in Asia-Pacific indicated that the pandemic has accelerated the pace of their technology implementation, and on average, companies in Asia earmark around 11% of their total annual IT budget for digital transformation. In two years the majority of these companies expect to increase their spending to 14%.

China had the highest surveyed response for acceleration, with 62% of firms reporting implementation having gotten faster.

There was also an increased interest in blockchain and cloud-based finance options as well. The survey showed that while 78% of firms have already made progress in their use of the cloud over the past year, the number of firms reaching mid or advanced levels of implementation increased to 80% in 2021. This statistic is expected to jump significantly to 91% over the next two years.

The use of blockchain is said to also significantly widen going forward, with more than two-thirds (69%) of firms planning to reach the later stages of this type of implementation in two years.

Digital ledgers were also a heavily mentioned concept in the survey, with the amount of digital ledger implementations increasing from 5% to 37%.

Nearly all firms categorised as leaders in the maturity framework were found to be at a mid-to-advanced level of implementation; however, only 11% of beginners in the maturity framework were at mid-to-advanced levels of implementation. This suggests a further need to focus on helping beginners with easy and efficient solutions to suit their business needs.

While beginners are reporting lower numbers, the survey shows that two-thirds of firms have already begun setting up a centralised data platform with access to data across divisions, which allows them to serve customers more holistically and make better strategic decisions.

Broadridge chief executive officer Tim Gokey says that customers are thinking about new ways to scale up and therefore looking to new technologies.

"Digital leaders are succeeding with a clear vision and roadmap that prioritises digitised communications, experiences, and workflows leveraging strong data and analytics," he says.

"This year's survey confirms that leading firms are more driven than ever to implement the key pillars of a digital-first future. As a result, digital transformation leaders are seeing accelerated growth.