The investment landscape is in flux and on the verge of profound change.
THE BRAVE NEW DIGITAL WORLD
Faced with this brave new digital world, custodians will evolve, or they will fall by the wayside. By 2030, successful asset servicers will be the ones who have bridged the gap between traditional and digital assets, and helped their clients navigate the transition between the two. They will be offering their clients truly customisable information and insights across all of their assets, in a simple and accessible way, available any time they choose to access it. They will have learnt how to collaborate, and how to navigate a new ecosystem.
But in this period of rapid change leading up to 2030, it will be easy to get lost in the noise. Asset servicers will have to remember that, first and foremost, they will always have a duty of care to their clients, whether they are managing digital or traditional assets, or a combination of both. In an increasingly diverging marketplace, the cornerstone responsibility of the custodian is asset safety.
10 years is an incredibly long time in the custody industry – the investment landscape is in constant flux as new products, asset classes and technologies come to the fore. We’ve explored a base case for the new opportunities that will have developed across financial services by 2030 but, as the speed of change continues to increase, far more could happen in the next 10 years. However, we can be certain that custodians will continue to be the enablers of their clients’ investment strategies, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness come what may.