Final Tech Report HD - Flipbook - Page 29
Where do you see technology heading in
the next 1-3 years for Ireland’s financial
services industry?
Earlier this year, I was very fortunate to attend the MIT Sloan &
HEA Work of the Future Conference in Dublin Castle.
Integration of technology, productivity, the future of finance,
were key speaking points. It allowed me to reacquaint myself
with the word technology and consider, with renewed
perspective, the fact that technology is both a “tool” (e.g. what
we invent to improve our work and lives) and a “skill” (e.g. the
MAI SANTAMARIA
HEAD OF FINANCIAL ADVISORY
TEAM,
DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE
knowledge and the application thereof that enhances the
value of the tool itself).
Why does this matter?
Let’s consider technology (tool and skill) in the context of the
"I see the technology in the
financial services in Ireland
moving to the
background. Becoming
invisible. I see the highly skilled
financial services talent pool
becoming proficient in new
disruptive technologies, to the
point that the technology itself
ceases to be a speaking topic"
financial services sector. I remember my early auditing days in
the IFSC, when paper files ruled the world. Within a year of
starting my job, we were working on laptops and rushing back
to the office to “replicate” our work with the servers. A year on,
we were fighting for first access to the phone socket so we
could update our digital files remotely. My first Blackberry, with
its side dial, gave me repetitive strain injury on my thumb
within weeks. Fast forward less than a decade, and I witnessed
one of the first mobile text balance checks in a Barclays branch
in Nairobi, using a trusted Nokia 3310.
Technology, the “tool” side, evolved very fast in a short period of
10 years. However, over that same period of time, did my
finance technology “skill” side evolve pari pasu? Definitely not.
Before internet, online courses and YouTube, any time
committed was applied to learn how to use the technology, to
get by, to weave in the new tool with the job we were doing.
The focus was on getting accustomed to use the new
technology. We would consider what we could use the
technology for, but seldom contemplate who we could be
when using the new technology.
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