Over half (53%) of senior finance executives globally expect the economic environment to improve over the coming year, while a further 40% expect a continuation of current market conditions. That is according to the annual Future of Finance Study by SIX – the annual survey that canvasses the opinions of senior executives across 293 financial institutions across the world.
This optimism is tempered by a recognition from the majority of respondents that their companies will need to make further efforts in order to successfully take advantage of the potential they recognize for growth. Repeating a trend seen in 2023, Singaporean (53%) and Swiss (53%) companies feel the most positively about their own positions being strong, while asset managers (60%) and investment banks (62%) are the institution types that most strongly see themselves needing to take measures to achieve progression.
Regarding the key drivers for success, expanding into alternative asset classes (35%) rose from third-ranked in 2023 to top in 2024, replacing the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), which fell to fourth in the overall rankings, after a boom in interest at the time of last year’s survey. Rounding out this year’s top three is distributed ledger technology (DLT) (34%), which moves up two places since last year, and embedded finance (33%), rising by three.
Although financial institutions around the globe are generally anticipating favorable conditions for growth over the coming years, they also cite several factors that they expect to pose a challenge. Unsurprisingly, geopolitical uncertainties ranked top with over a third of respondents citing it as a major headwind (34%), with failure to adopt new technologies (31%) and global economic downturn (31%) completing the top three.
“Something that remains a constant in financial markets is the recognition that by embracing innovation, institutions are better placed to succeed,” said Jos Dijsselhof, CEO SIX. “Addressing the needs of capital markets companies through the continuous provision of choice is something that financial market infrastructure providers must take the lead on, to ensure that we are always supporting organizations to be globally competitive, and resilient to the challenges of the moment.”
The full 2024 Future of Finance Study, comprised of four chapters covering growth, data and analytics, technology, and capital markets, is available here.