Combatting digital transformation fatigue
Combatting digital transformation fatigue
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The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Fintech in ASEAN
To better understand the opportunities and challenges in developing a fintech business in seven ASEAN markets, The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted wide-ranging desk research supplemented by seven in-depth interviews with executives in Australia and ASEAN.
Download report and watch video interview to learn more.
Risks and opportunities in a changing world
Read our Taxing digital services, U.S. tax reform: The global dimension, & Planning for life after NAFTA articles by clicking the thumbnails below.
Financial and Professional Services: Trade challenges and opportunities post pandemic
Financial and Professional Services: Trade challenges and opportunities post pandemic
Alongside professional services, it plays a pivotal role in the modern economy and international trade flows. The Covid-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the industry that was already being reshaped by the effects of the global financial crisis, sustainability drive and digital innovation. Digital transformation, changing customer preferences and regulatory pressures, are also challenging existing business models in financial and related professional services.
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Education: Trade challenges and opportunities post pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented disruptions to education systems; however it has also accelerated many of the structural changes undergoing in the sector and opened up new opportunities. The emergence online and hybrid learning models, the take-up of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) have the potential to reshape the sector and pose serious threats to current incumbents, if investment in supporting connectivity infrastructure and training is not embraced.
The global education sector has reached an impressive scale, having grown rapidly over the previous decade, and forecasted to double in market size within the next decade. Total enrollment across all levels of education reached 829 million students in late 2019, a 14% increase from 2010. In 2019, more than 5.5 million students studied in degree programmes outside their home countries, more than double the number doing so in 2000. The global education market is projected to continue expanding rapidly and more than double in size, reaching US$2.4trn by 2027, up from US$1.1trn in 2019.1
Growing student population: Global student enrollment, 2010-2019 (million students) growth ratesThe pandemic has accelerated the digital imperative, a likely irreversible change, that is forcing education providers to rethink their strategies. Although most students have returned to classrooms since the height of the pandemic, educational institutions can now be certain that blended or digital-only modes of learning are part of their future. Established high education providers can no longer afford to put off investment in the digital future, as growing competition from new entrants in the market intensifies. The strongest challenges are posed by online-only providers of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses). This segment has seen rapid growth in 2020, increasing its international base of registered learners by 50%, and reaching 180 million users (excluding China).2 US-based MOOC Coursera has led the charge, adding 30 million new users in 2020 and attracting substantial new funding to increase its expansion. There is growing expectations that MOOCs, as they refine their models, will have a larger impact on the sector in the years to come.
Global spending on education technology is also showing signs of expansion. Total spending worldwide in 2020 was US$227bn, accounting for 3.6% of total expenditure on education and training. Spending is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years, reaching US$404bn in 2025.3 Advanced technologies that enable immersive and multi-sensory learning methods, such as augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), are expected to grow fastest to around US$13bn globally, while AI and robotics spend is expected to reach US$9bn.4 Investors follow the suit, as the EdTech segments attracted over US$16bn venture capital (VC) investment in 2020, up from just US$1.8bn in 2014.
EdTech boom: Global Venture Capital (VC) investment in EdTech, 2015-2020 (US$bn)There are however significant structural challenges that remain in place that may hinder the growth EdTech. The lack of high-quality broadband infrastructure needed to support more advanced forms of learning, coupled with teachers’ lack of readiness to embrace digital forms of learning are some of the biggest limits to the growth in the sector. Governments and telecom companies have a major role to play in upgrading the current broadband infrastructure, guaranteeing faster levels of connectivity and increasing digital skills training. There are further concerns towards data security and the need to ensure adequate data privacy practices by EdTech firms.
1 Fortune Business Insights, 2020: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/higher-education-market-104503 2 The Report by Class Central, 2020: https://www.classcentral.com/report/the-second-year-of-the-mooc/ 3 HolonIQ, January 2021: https://www.holoniq.com/edtech/10-charts-that-explain-the-global-education-technology-market/ 4 Ibid
Digital Technology: Trade challenges and opportunities post pandemic
As a driver of economic growth and competitiveness, however, the science and production of digital technologies are also becoming an area of fierce competition between countries. Global spending on ICT (information and communication technology) has increased steadily at 4% annually for several years, reaching a total of US$4.9trn in 2019.1 Despite the pandemic-related slowdown in momentum for traditional type of hardware and enterprise software, spending on newer technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), robotics, 3D printing, AI and VR is expected to grow at a faster pace. Global ICT spending is forecasted to increase from US$5.2trn in 2021 to US$5.8trn in 2023, with an annual growth of 6%. Newer technologies will account for 23% of total spend in 2023, up from 14% in 2018.2
The digital economy is also a considerable driver of international trade, with cross border exports of ICT good and services estimated at US$2.74trn in 20203. While trade in goods accounts for the highest share, trade in ICT services is growing annually by 7.7% (CAGR) between 2010 and 2017.4
Rapid recovery: Worldwide ICT spending, 2018-2023 (US$ bn)Several high-profile sub-sectors epitomize the rapid growth of and challenges faced by the digital technology sector. The worldwide revenue from the sale of artificial intelligence (AI) -based software and services stood at US$62bn in 2020 and is set to reach US$998 by 20285. One study estimated the potential value generated by application of AI techniques across various industries places the market between US$3.5trn and US$5.8trn.6 However, there are two main obstacles that hinder a widescale AI adoption: the shortage of good quality data and data scientists, particularly as the talent that drives improvements in AI is largely concentrated in large economies such as the US, UK, Germany and China.
Cybersecurity is also an area that has attracted growing investment from corporates and VCs. With the advent of the digital economy, cyber threats put organizations and societies at risk. Global revenues for cybersecurity services are projected to grow from US$67bn in 2019 to US$111bn in 2025.7 Funding for companies providing cybersecurity services has increased nine-fold to US$7.8bn in 20208. The pandemic has further highlighted security vulnerabilities faced by organizations, as the mass shift to remote working coupled with the increased use of cloud infrastructure and services have exposed many to cybersecurity threats.
The pandemic has also impacted semiconductors, a key commodity for the digital economy representing a market expected to grow to US$469bn in 2021.9 A rise in demand for digital services and computer equipment caused severe supply chain disruptions across the global semiconductor production. The shortages have thrown light on the inadequate resilience of technology sector supply chains. They have also underscored the extreme concentration of semiconductor production. Although US firms account for 47% of global sales, most exports originate from East Asia—namely Taiwan, South Korea and China. Moreover, the most advanced generation of semiconductors is currently produced at scale only by Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung.10
Something’s phishy: Share of cyber security breaches reported by UK companies over previous 12 months, by type of breachAs digital dominates more parts of the global economy, governments are taking proactive action to include the digital economy within national industrial policy. The need to gain strategic autonomy, in light of growing geopolitical rivalries, is prompting governments to adopt policies aimed at protecting their national technology sector. Since 2008, 101 countries representing more than 90% of global GDP have adopted formal industrial development strategies.11 These have focused mainly on supporting technology innovation and the digital economy. The resulting risk of fragmentation of global technology supply chains is likely to stay high on the agenda for global technology companies and governments around the world.
1IDC, Global ICT Spending: Forecast 2020-2023: https://www.idc.com/promo/global-ict-spending/forecast 2 Ibid 3 Estimated using World Development Indicators and IDC data. 4 Ibid 5 Grand View Research, Artificial Intelligence Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report, 2021-2028: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-ai-market 6 McKinsey Global Institute, Notes from the AI Frontier, 2018:https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/artificial-intelligence/notes-from-the-ai-frontier-applications-and-value-of-deep-learning 7 The Business Research Company, “Cybersecurity Industry Overview Shows US To Account For The Largest Share Among Countries, In The Global Cyber Securities Market 2020”, November 2020: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/11/05/2121251/0/en/Cybersecurity-Industry-Overview- Shows-US-To-Account-For-The-Largest-Share-Among-Countries-In-The-Global-Cyber-Securities-Market-2020.html 8 Crunchbase, The Rise Of Global Cybersecurity Venture Funding, 2021: https://about.crunchbase.com/cybersecurity-research-report-2021/ 9 Semiconductor Industry Association, 2021 Factbook: https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-SIA-Factbook-May-19-FINAL.pdf 10 Ibid 11 UNCTAD, World Investment Forum 2018: https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/wir2018_en.pdf
Consumer Goods: Trade challenges and opportunities post pandemic
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, consumer goods accounted for a quarter of the world’s trade in goods, representing US$4.8trn in 2019.1 In 2020 private consumption declined by nearly 11% in the UK and Italy, 6-7% in Germany, France and Japan and 4% and 3% in the US and China respectively.2 Some goods sectors suffered more than others. Travel, entertainment and hospitality were some of the hardest hit, while others, like electronics, saw demand increase as remote working became widespread. The pandemic has further accelerated several structural changes already underway. These include a rapid growth in e-commerce and digitalisation of global supply chains, an increased focus on sustainability, a move towards greater servicification and the reshaping of global value chains.
Pandemic shock: Change in private consumption during the Global recession (2009) and Covid-19 pandemic (2020) | Real annual change (%)
During the pandemic, consumers pivoted to digital channels, with 60% of consumers worldwide changing their shopping behaviors during the pandemic, most of whom intend to continue with their new behaviors.3 The migration from high street stores to e-commerce platforms has accelerated digitalisation, with businesses that had already invested in e-commerce coming out as chief beneficiaries. Amazon, for example, posted a 70% increase in earnings during the first nine months of 20204, with profits three times higher than 2019.5
The pandemic also highlighted the issue of resilience and sustainability of global supply chains. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) in 2020 slowly started to scale back their supply chains, considering the geopolitical and economic tensions between the US and China and the growing issue of sourcing from a single geography. Significant supply chain disruptions were faced by businesses during the pandemic, with one survey on supply chain executives in the food and consumer goods industries highlighting that at the height of the pandemic, 91% of respondents said they had problems with suppliers.6 These tensions are playing out in the context of rapidly changing geographical distribution of global trade patterns. In the decade since the 2008 financial crisis, Chinese share of global exports has increased to 17% (from 11.5%) and 13.4% of global imports (from 8.7%).7 The Asia-Pacific region is now largely expected to outgrow developed markets in consumer goods, accounting for up to 35% of the global industry share by 2022.8
The changing game of trade: The export volume of goods index rebased to 2010=100
The rise of digital and sustainable consumption poses significant opportunities and challenges for businesses in the consumer goods sector. The online retail market is forecast to double in size by 20259, with new or low frequency users expected to drive a 160% increase in e-commerce purchases over the coming years. Businesses are showing some strong interest in harnessing the trends of digitalization with 80% of executives in the industry specifically allocating investments to improve their e-commerce shopping platforms in 2021.10
Digital future: Share of on-line retail on total retail sales (%)Sustainability has also moved high in the consumer goods agenda, with more than half of consumers across all markets intending to purchase more sustainable products once the pandemic subsides.11Businesses are adapting to increase resilience and sustainability of their internal businesses and their supply chains. Advances in cloud software, blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite technology can be harnessed to enable flexibility and resilience in supply chains.
1 UNCTAD. ‘Key statistics and trends in international trade 2020’ (internet). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 2021 (accessed 9.6.21). Available at: https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditctab2020d4_en.pdf 2 Remes, J. Manyika, J et al. ‘The consumer demand recovery and lasting effects of COVID-19’ internet). McKinsey. 2021 (accessed 9.6.21). Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/the-consumer-demand-recovery-and-lasting-effects-of-covid-19 3 McKinsey. ‘Perspectives on retail and consumer goods’ (internet). McKinsey & Company, 2020 (accessed 7.6.21). Available at:https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Retail/Our%20Insights/Perspectives%20on%20retail%20and%20consumer%20goods%20Number%208/Perspectives -on-Retail-and-Consumer-Goods_Issue-8.pdf 4Takefman, B. ‘Amazon profits increased nearly 200% since start of Covid-19 pandemic’ (internet). ResearchFDI. 2021 (accessed 14.6.21). Available at: https://researchfdi.com/amazon-covid-19-pandemic-profits/ 5Sky News. ‘Amazon’s profits more than tripled in the first three months of 2021’ (internet). Sky. 2021. Accessed 14.6.21). Available at: https://news.sky.com/story/amazons-profits-more-than-tripled-in-the-firs... 6 Alicke, K. Gupta, R. Trautwein, V. ‘Resetting supply chains for the next normal’ (internet). McKinsey. 2020 (accessed 8.6.21). Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/resetting-supply-chains-for-the-next-normal 7 Eurostat. ‘World trade in goods’ (internet). Eurostat - statistics explained. 2020 (accessed 8.6.21). Available at:https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php?title=World_trade_in_goods#World_trade_in_goods:_developments_between_2008_a nd_201f 8 Accenture. ‘A new era of trade for consumer goods industry’ (internet). Accenture, 2020 (accessed 8.6.21). Available at: https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-73/accenture-new-era-of-trade-for-consumer-goods-industry.pdf 9 EIU. ‘Digital disruption: risks and opportunities in the shift to online’ (internet). Economist Intelligence Unit. 2020 (accessed 14.6.21). Available at: https://www.eiu.com/n/digital-disruption-risks-and-opportunities-in-the-shift-to-online/ 10 Deloitte. ‘2021 consumer products industry outlook: No-regret moves in the face of uncertainty’ (internet). Deloitte. 2021 (accessed 14.6.21). Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/consumer-products-industry-outlook.html 11 YouGov. ‘International FMCG/CPG report 2021’ (internet). YouGov. 2021 (accessed 14.6.21). Available at: https://db42aa43a2d5ed566294-81964d36a501d7a15be4d8350b0feec4.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/YouGov-International-FMCG-Report- 2021%20(2).pdf
What is shaping the ecosystem of small business lending?
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The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Fintech in ASEAN
To better understand the opportunities and challenges in developing a fintech business in seven ASEAN markets, The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted wide-ranging desk research supplemented by seven in-depth interviews with executives in Australia and ASEAN.
Download report and watch video interview to learn more.
Risks and opportunities in a changing world
Read our Taxing digital services, U.S. tax reform: The global dimension, & Planning for life after NAFTA articles by clicking the thumbnails below.
Article | Rapid change is here: The future of financial services
Article | Rapid change is here: The future of financial services
While spared the massive waves of layoffs that hit the restaurant, hospitality and entertainment industries, employees in the financial services sector faced stress-related organisational uncertainty, market volatility, social isolation and constricted childcare options. The nature of the sector’s work enabled most organisations to quickly shift to remote working arrangements after lockdowns began.
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Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead: Rethinking US Workplace Priorities...
Waves of substantial disruption are the norm in business, not the exception. The challenges of 2020-21 have been unusual, but workers and organisations can never assume that stability will persist. The US employment landscape was already seeing substantial transformation long before 2020. That said, covid-19 has revealed the future of work faster than anyone expected. Digitalisation has accelerated; widespread working from home has left many workers eager for more; and the joint experience of navigating through immense disruption has profoundly affected workplace relations. The great unknown is how much will last and how much will be seen in retrospect as a temporary blip.
To shed light on the major shifts taking place, The Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Prudential, conducted an in-depth survey in November and December 2020 of over 5,800 US workers and executives across five key industry verticals—healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, the public sector and unions—in order to explore the impact of the pandemic accelerated new work paradigm. Specifically, we asked about organisational and worker concerns, priorities, remote work experiences, digital maturity, technology investments, skills and capabilities, and likely future challenges. This executive summary reports the overall findings from the survey, while other pieces will discuss insights relevant to the specific industry verticals.
Key findings:
Workers and their organisations were largely on the same page as they addressed the workplace implications of dealing with covid-19-related disruption in 2020. The economic turmoil that the pandemic unleashed had uneven results with, perhaps surprisingly, more workers saying that their company culture and workplace relations improved rather than deteriorated. Although workers are currently optimistic about their employment, there are widespread concerns about longer-term financial security. Talent largely values better pay and job security, but organisations may be prioritising other factors and some risk focusing insufficiently on worker engagement. Digitalisation will continue to reshape the workplace but also intensify the competition for digital talent. A lasting legacy of the social response to the pandemic will be retaining remote working as a mainstream option.
A strategic playbook for navigating the pandemic-accelerated new work parad...
The covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the US employment landscape in drastic and long lasting ways. A variety of pre-existing trends affecting organisations and workers have been accelerated by the historic crisis: digital transformation, remote work and automation, to name a few. The new normal that emerges from the pandemic has profound implications for how and where work gets done, and—more fundamentally—how organisations and workers relate to each other. To remain competitive, organisations will need to skillfully navigate both near-term business challenges and longer-term talent, technology and workplace culture issues.
To understand how the pandemic has affected workers and organisations, and surface important sector-specific and broader trends, Economist Impact, sponsored by Prudential, surveyed more than 5,800 US workers and executives in late 2020. Respondents were in five key industry verticals: healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, the public sector and unions. Complementing the Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead report, which summarises the overall findings from the survey, this playbook presents key findings for specific industry verticals, insights gleaned from expert interviews, and discusses their implications for organisations moving forward. While revealing cross-vertical trends, it sheds light on unique or prominent findings in specific verticals.
Key Findings:
Overall, many workers said their wellbeing had improved in various ways during the pandemic. However, the survey has revealed its disproportionate impact on certain groups, including older workers and women. These disparities, particularly seen in the healthcare and public sector verticals, with high levels of their workforce deemed essential to critical social and physical infrastructure, incites a deeper observation. Covid-19 has been a multidimensional public health and economic crisis. Health and safety concerns have been significant among essential workers, but the survey results make clear that financial concerns remained prominent. In that vein we have observed verticals—across the board—fall short of providing or raising awareness of tools and resources to address this need. While digital transformation has become an urgent requirement during the pandemic, rather than a business goal for organisations, executives are increasing investments in new technologies, as well as grappling with disproportionate digital divides, evident in the public sector and manufacturing. Competition for information technology talent will also intensify, especially in the financial services sector. The unpredictable disruptions presented by covid-19 have underscored the importance of stability for workers on edge and exhausted. For some, the crisis has highlighted how unions empower members to advocate for their wellbeing and safety, exemplified by the investments seen in the public sector. Accordingly, there may be a lesson there for organisations across all sectors as they emerge, transformed in a number of ways, from the pandemic: an empowered workforce can also be more engaged and resilient.
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Related content
Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead: Rethinking US Workplace Priorities...
Waves of substantial disruption are the norm in business, not the exception. The challenges of 2020-21 have been unusual, but workers and organisations can never assume that stability will persist. The US employment landscape was already seeing substantial transformation long before 2020. That said, covid-19 has revealed the future of work faster than anyone expected. Digitalisation has accelerated; widespread working from home has left many workers eager for more; and the joint experience of navigating through immense disruption has profoundly affected workplace relations. The great unknown is how much will last and how much will be seen in retrospect as a temporary blip.
To shed light on the major shifts taking place, The Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Prudential, conducted an in-depth survey in November and December 2020 of over 5,800 US workers and executives across five key industry verticals—healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, the public sector and unions—in order to explore the impact of the pandemic accelerated new work paradigm. Specifically, we asked about organisational and worker concerns, priorities, remote work experiences, digital maturity, technology investments, skills and capabilities, and likely future challenges. This executive summary reports the overall findings from the survey, while other pieces will discuss insights relevant to the specific industry verticals.
Key findings:
Workers and their organisations were largely on the same page as they addressed the workplace implications of dealing with covid-19-related disruption in 2020. The economic turmoil that the pandemic unleashed had uneven results with, perhaps surprisingly, more workers saying that their company culture and workplace relations improved rather than deteriorated. Although workers are currently optimistic about their employment, there are widespread concerns about longer-term financial security. Talent largely values better pay and job security, but organisations may be prioritising other factors and some risk focusing insufficiently on worker engagement. Digitalisation will continue to reshape the workplace but also intensify the competition for digital talent. A lasting legacy of the social response to the pandemic will be retaining remote working as a mainstream option.
A strategic playbook for navigating the pandemic-accelerated new work parad...
The covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the US employment landscape in drastic and long lasting ways. A variety of pre-existing trends affecting organisations and workers have been accelerated by the historic crisis: digital transformation, remote work and automation, to name a few. The new normal that emerges from the pandemic has profound implications for how and where work gets done, and—more fundamentally—how organisations and workers relate to each other. To remain competitive, organisations will need to skillfully navigate both near-term business challenges and longer-term talent, technology and workplace culture issues.
To understand how the pandemic has affected workers and organisations, and surface important sector-specific and broader trends, Economist Impact, sponsored by Prudential, surveyed more than 5,800 US workers and executives in late 2020. Respondents were in five key industry verticals: healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, the public sector and unions. Complementing the Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead report, which summarises the overall findings from the survey, this playbook presents key findings for specific industry verticals, insights gleaned from expert interviews, and discusses their implications for organisations moving forward. While revealing cross-vertical trends, it sheds light on unique or prominent findings in specific verticals.
Key Findings:
Overall, many workers said their wellbeing had improved in various ways during the pandemic. However, the survey has revealed its disproportionate impact on certain groups, including older workers and women. These disparities, particularly seen in the healthcare and public sector verticals, with high levels of their workforce deemed essential to critical social and physical infrastructure, incites a deeper observation. Covid-19 has been a multidimensional public health and economic crisis. Health and safety concerns have been significant among essential workers, but the survey results make clear that financial concerns remained prominent. In that vein we have observed verticals—across the board—fall short of providing or raising awareness of tools and resources to address this need. While digital transformation has become an urgent requirement during the pandemic, rather than a business goal for organisations, executives are increasing investments in new technologies, as well as grappling with disproportionate digital divides, evident in the public sector and manufacturing. Competition for information technology talent will also intensify, especially in the financial services sector. The unpredictable disruptions presented by covid-19 have underscored the importance of stability for workers on edge and exhausted. For some, the crisis has highlighted how unions empower members to advocate for their wellbeing and safety, exemplified by the investments seen in the public sector. Accordingly, there may be a lesson there for organisations across all sectors as they emerge, transformed in a number of ways, from the pandemic: an empowered workforce can also be more engaged and resilient.
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
VIDEO | Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead - Financial Services
This video is part of the Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead programme conducted by Economist Impact and sponsored by Prudential. The program explores the impact of the pandemic-accelerated new work paradigm across five key industry verticals, including financial services.
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Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead: Rethinking US Workplace Priorities...
Waves of substantial disruption are the norm in business, not the exception. The challenges of 2020-21 have been unusual, but workers and organisations can never assume that stability will persist. The US employment landscape was already seeing substantial transformation long before 2020. That said, covid-19 has revealed the future of work faster than anyone expected. Digitalisation has accelerated; widespread working from home has left many workers eager for more; and the joint experience of navigating through immense disruption has profoundly affected workplace relations. The great unknown is how much will last and how much will be seen in retrospect as a temporary blip.
To shed light on the major shifts taking place, The Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Prudential, conducted an in-depth survey in November and December 2020 of over 5,800 US workers and executives across five key industry verticals—healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, the public sector and unions—in order to explore the impact of the pandemic accelerated new work paradigm. Specifically, we asked about organisational and worker concerns, priorities, remote work experiences, digital maturity, technology investments, skills and capabilities, and likely future challenges. This executive summary reports the overall findings from the survey, while other pieces will discuss insights relevant to the specific industry verticals.
Key findings:
Workers and their organisations were largely on the same page as they addressed the workplace implications of dealing with covid-19-related disruption in 2020. The economic turmoil that the pandemic unleashed had uneven results with, perhaps surprisingly, more workers saying that their company culture and workplace relations improved rather than deteriorated. Although workers are currently optimistic about their employment, there are widespread concerns about longer-term financial security. Talent largely values better pay and job security, but organisations may be prioritising other factors and some risk focusing insufficiently on worker engagement. Digitalisation will continue to reshape the workplace but also intensify the competition for digital talent. A lasting legacy of the social response to the pandemic will be retaining remote working as a mainstream option.
A strategic playbook for navigating the pandemic-accelerated new work parad...
The covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the US employment landscape in drastic and long lasting ways. A variety of pre-existing trends affecting organisations and workers have been accelerated by the historic crisis: digital transformation, remote work and automation, to name a few. The new normal that emerges from the pandemic has profound implications for how and where work gets done, and—more fundamentally—how organisations and workers relate to each other. To remain competitive, organisations will need to skillfully navigate both near-term business challenges and longer-term talent, technology and workplace culture issues.
To understand how the pandemic has affected workers and organisations, and surface important sector-specific and broader trends, Economist Impact, sponsored by Prudential, surveyed more than 5,800 US workers and executives in late 2020. Respondents were in five key industry verticals: healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, the public sector and unions. Complementing the Recovery, Resilience and the Road Ahead report, which summarises the overall findings from the survey, this playbook presents key findings for specific industry verticals, insights gleaned from expert interviews, and discusses their implications for organisations moving forward. While revealing cross-vertical trends, it sheds light on unique or prominent findings in specific verticals.
Key Findings:
Overall, many workers said their wellbeing had improved in various ways during the pandemic. However, the survey has revealed its disproportionate impact on certain groups, including older workers and women. These disparities, particularly seen in the healthcare and public sector verticals, with high levels of their workforce deemed essential to critical social and physical infrastructure, incites a deeper observation. Covid-19 has been a multidimensional public health and economic crisis. Health and safety concerns have been significant among essential workers, but the survey results make clear that financial concerns remained prominent. In that vein we have observed verticals—across the board—fall short of providing or raising awareness of tools and resources to address this need. While digital transformation has become an urgent requirement during the pandemic, rather than a business goal for organisations, executives are increasing investments in new technologies, as well as grappling with disproportionate digital divides, evident in the public sector and manufacturing. Competition for information technology talent will also intensify, especially in the financial services sector. The unpredictable disruptions presented by covid-19 have underscored the importance of stability for workers on edge and exhausted. For some, the crisis has highlighted how unions empower members to advocate for their wellbeing and safety, exemplified by the investments seen in the public sector. Accordingly, there may be a lesson there for organisations across all sectors as they emerge, transformed in a number of ways, from the pandemic: an empowered workforce can also be more engaged and resilient.
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Capturing value in the cloud
Capturing value in the cloud
- Just under three-quarters (72%) of IT executives at banks surveyed by The Economist Intelligence Unit report that incorporating the cloud into their organisation’s products and services will help them to achieve their business priorities.
- Business agility, elasticity and scalability are together cited by 40% of respondents as top drivers of cloud adoption.
Related content
Demanding More
More than a year after much of the world went into some form of lockdown, many customers previously resistant to digital banking have grown accustomed to it, and most do not plan to return to their old banking habits. A survey of people in the US aged 18 to 65, conducted by Chase Bank, found that four in five now prefer to manage their finances digitally rather than in person, and three-quarters are likely to continue using digital payment options even after the covid-19 threat subsides. These findings are mirrored in many other countries around the world.
“Overnight people became digital, when it was supposed to take ten years,” says Michal Kissos Hertzog, chief executive of Pepper, an Israeli digital bank, of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. “It doesn’t matter if you are Gen X or Gen Z—everyone became digital.”
Banks have been forced to adapt as a result. “All banks have had to up their game, so competition has become stronger,” says Ms Kissos Hertzog. The shift to online brought by the pandemic has proven a boon for digital-only banks. As of January 2021, 14m Brits (27% of UK adults) had a digital-only bank account—16% growth from January 2020 and a threefold increase compared to January 2019.
The shift has brought forward expectations of the demise of the branch, traditionally the centre of the retail banking experience. According to our annual global banking survey, supported by Temenos, 65% of bankers now believe that the traditional branch-based banking model will be “dead” within five years, while 71% expect cash to represent less than 5% of all retail transactions globally by 2025.
Senior executives report that technology is driving customer experience. Survey respondents cited changing customer behaviours and demands around digital banking, the new technologies needed to understand and serve customers better, and regulation on digital technology (including data protection, which dictates how banks can interact with customers and their data) as the top three trends that will have the biggest impact on banks in their countries by 2025.
Consequently, survey respondents’ top strategic priorities by 2025 are all customer-focused: improving customer experience and engagement, including personalisation and intimacy; mastering digital marketing; and migrating client usage from physical to digital channels.
At Pepper, the focus has been personalisation. When individual customers open the bank’s app, they see a homepage personalised to their specific actions, says Ms Kissos Hertzog. “Different customers will see different products, will receive different marketing.” The goal is a “segment of one”, tailoring the experience precisely to the individual consumer based on their activity and preferences. “The more personalised the service is, the more engaged customers are.”
Technology investment
According to survey respondents, banks’ top investments in customer-related technology include developing artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, such as digital advisors and voiceassisted engagement channels, and advanced and predictive data analytics for customer experience.
Adoption of this technology starts with data, says Ms Hertzog. “Banks are sitting on a humongous amount of data, but they are not doing a good job [of using it],” she says. “I want to use data to give customers a better understanding of their money, to help them decide how to save, to budget, whether they should invest in the stock market."
But she cautions against focusing investment on specific technologies just because they are the latest trend. “I’ve never heard my users saying, ‘I chose you because you have the best artificial intelligence of all banks’. What they care about is that they will have good service, that they’ll see the benefits from their bank, and that we meet their needs,” she says.
“When we speak about technology, it’s important to understand that the technology is not the target, it’s a means to an end. Of course, we have to have great AI, and we are implementing machine learning and blockchain—we’re doing all of that. But we are doing all of that in order to give the best customer experience.”
Branching out: can banks move from city centres to digital ecosystems?
Crunch time for banks
Bankruptcy comes two ways, Ernest Hemingway wrote: “gradually, then suddenly”. Such has been high-street banking’s fate at the turn of the decade. Justifying the axing of a fifth of Santander’s branches, deputy chief executive Tony Prestedge told the BBC that branch transactions at the eurozone’s largest retail bank had fallen by a third in the two years prior to the covid-19 pandemic—before they plunged by half during the lockdowns of 2020. “The pandemic has ‘concertinaed’ five to ten years of change into a year,” said Mr Prestedge.
The rapid collapse of branch-based banking is an acceleration of a trend that The Economist Intelligence Unit’s global banking survey, now in its eighth year, has long seen coming. In the latest survey, conducted in early 2021, just under two-thirds (65%) of banking executives agreed that the branch-based model will be “dead” within five years, up from 59% last year and 35% in 2018 (see Figure 1). In 2018 69% of Europe-based respondents disagreed with the statement—today the same proportion agree.
This year’s survey finds that branch closures and continued pressure from non-traditional competitors have triggered a wholesale rethinking of banking priorities and business models among banking executives.
Just under two thirds (65%) of bankers now believe that the branch-based model will be “dead” within five years, up from 35% four years ago. The rise has been sharpest in Europe and North America.
Banks in 2021 face competition from all sides. New, nimbler competitors including fintech startups, payment players, superapp platforms and tech giants continue to gain market share from incumbent banks as more non-traditional players gain the ability to offer more traditional banking services. A number of youthful fintechs have landed banking charters in the past year, including Varo and Square, enabling them to take deposits and extend credit. The growth of capital markets and central banks’ tentative experiments in digital currency further threaten banks’ very raison d’être.
But banks are coming out fighting. The stumble of some consumer challenger banks over the course of the pandemic—firms such as Monzo and Revolut struggled with sharp falls in revenue and customer complaints over missing funds—has put smartphonefriendly, slick interfaces in sharp contrast with the dour reliability and brand recognition of established banks. Critically, customers appear to remain reluctant to trust digitallynative challengers with salary deposits. Many established banks, spurred by rapid consumer change forced by the pandemic, are hopeful that through strategic partnerships and investments in technology they can be the best of both for consumers: a trusted banking partner, and purveyors of whizzy, consumer-friendly banking experiences.
Customer experience: the currency of competition
This year’s survey reveals a dramatic shift in priorities. Five years ago, as banking costs soared due to new regulatory requirements worldwide, banks were focused on cutting costs and boosting margins to maintain shareholders’ return-on-equity. Today, customer experience and digital marketing are top priorities for executives as they strive to compete with challengers’ frictionless onboarding, budget planning and perks such as free international payments.
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Demanding More
Demanding More
- Four in five bankers (81%) believe that banks will seek to differentiate on customer experience rather than products, according to a global survey of senior banking executives conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit. Mastering both customer experience and digital marketing are ranked as top strategic priorities for the next four years.
Related content
Branching out: can banks move from city centres to digital ecosystems?
Crunch time for banks
Bankruptcy comes two ways, Ernest Hemingway wrote: “gradually, then suddenly”. Such has been high-street banking’s fate at the turn of the decade. Justifying the axing of a fifth of Santander’s branches, deputy chief executive Tony Prestedge told the BBC that branch transactions at the eurozone’s largest retail bank had fallen by a third in the two years prior to the covid-19 pandemic—before they plunged by half during the lockdowns of 2020. “The pandemic has ‘concertinaed’ five to ten years of change into a year,” said Mr Prestedge.
The rapid collapse of branch-based banking is an acceleration of a trend that The Economist Intelligence Unit’s global banking survey, now in its eighth year, has long seen coming. In the latest survey, conducted in early 2021, just under two-thirds (65%) of banking executives agreed that the branch-based model will be “dead” within five years, up from 59% last year and 35% in 2018 (see Figure 1). In 2018 69% of Europe-based respondents disagreed with the statement—today the same proportion agree.
This year’s survey finds that branch closures and continued pressure from non-traditional competitors have triggered a wholesale rethinking of banking priorities and business models among banking executives.
Just under two thirds (65%) of bankers now believe that the branch-based model will be “dead” within five years, up from 35% four years ago. The rise has been sharpest in Europe and North America.
Banks in 2021 face competition from all sides. New, nimbler competitors including fintech startups, payment players, superapp platforms and tech giants continue to gain market share from incumbent banks as more non-traditional players gain the ability to offer more traditional banking services. A number of youthful fintechs have landed banking charters in the past year, including Varo and Square, enabling them to take deposits and extend credit. The growth of capital markets and central banks’ tentative experiments in digital currency further threaten banks’ very raison d’être.
But banks are coming out fighting. The stumble of some consumer challenger banks over the course of the pandemic—firms such as Monzo and Revolut struggled with sharp falls in revenue and customer complaints over missing funds—has put smartphonefriendly, slick interfaces in sharp contrast with the dour reliability and brand recognition of established banks. Critically, customers appear to remain reluctant to trust digitallynative challengers with salary deposits. Many established banks, spurred by rapid consumer change forced by the pandemic, are hopeful that through strategic partnerships and investments in technology they can be the best of both for consumers: a trusted banking partner, and purveyors of whizzy, consumer-friendly banking experiences.
Customer experience: the currency of competition
This year’s survey reveals a dramatic shift in priorities. Five years ago, as banking costs soared due to new regulatory requirements worldwide, banks were focused on cutting costs and boosting margins to maintain shareholders’ return-on-equity. Today, customer experience and digital marketing are top priorities for executives as they strive to compete with challengers’ frictionless onboarding, budget planning and perks such as free international payments.
Capturing value in the cloud
In his latest letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon does not hold back in his embrace of cloud technology. “We cannot overemphasise the extraordinary importance of new technology in the new world,” he writes, referring to the turbocharging effect that covid-19 has had on the adoption of the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services.
Before the pandemic, not all banks were quick to spot the advantages in offloading applications to the cloud, where virtually unlimited computing power allows enormous efficiencies. Banks have generally been slower to take to cloud computing than other sectors. But the adoption of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud infrastructure—for additional processing capacity, improved service capabilities and to outsource data storage—has accelerated since the start of the pandemic, as banks seize an opportunity to cut costs and ramp up their digital transformation projects.
Last year saw a flurry of deals. HSBC committed to using Amazon Web Services to develop new digital products and support security and compliance standards, while Wells Fargo has signed on Microsoft and Google as public cloud providers. Google has agreed similar partnerships with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
This comes as established banks figure out how to use incumbency to fend off fintechs and “challenger” banks, while the newer entrants use the cloud to advance quickly into new market opportunities.
In a new survey of IT executives in the banking sector, conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit and supported by Temenos, more than seven in ten (72%) report that incorporating the cloud into their organisation’s products and services will help them to achieve their business priorities. Just under half (47%) say that it will do so “to a great extent”, with Latin American respondents the most bullish (see Figure 1).
Microsoft, a large player in cloud services, believes that the pandemic has accelerated cloud adoption in four ways that go beyond cost considerations. The first is creation of economic efficiency, by moving away from reliance on a clunky computer mainframe environment. Second is enabling agility and speed to market by, for example, improving the customer onboarding experience in retail banking. Third is reimagining the modern workplace and process modernisation to increase productivity, while fourth is digital innovation through, for instance, the adoption of AI.
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Branching out: can banks move from city centres to digital ecosystems?
Branching out: can banks move from city centres to digital ecosystems?
- As the branch closures of covid-19 accelerate consumer shifts to online banking, 65% of bankers now believe that the branch-based model will be “dead” within five years, up from 35% four years ago, according to new research from The Economist Intelligence Unit.
- Four in five (81%) bankers believe that banks will seek to differentiate on customer experience rather than products. Mastering both customer experience and digital marketing are ranked as top strategic priorities over the next four years.
Related content
Demanding More
More than a year after much of the world went into some form of lockdown, many customers previously resistant to digital banking have grown accustomed to it, and most do not plan to return to their old banking habits. A survey of people in the US aged 18 to 65, conducted by Chase Bank, found that four in five now prefer to manage their finances digitally rather than in person, and three-quarters are likely to continue using digital payment options even after the covid-19 threat subsides. These findings are mirrored in many other countries around the world.
“Overnight people became digital, when it was supposed to take ten years,” says Michal Kissos Hertzog, chief executive of Pepper, an Israeli digital bank, of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. “It doesn’t matter if you are Gen X or Gen Z—everyone became digital.”
Banks have been forced to adapt as a result. “All banks have had to up their game, so competition has become stronger,” says Ms Kissos Hertzog. The shift to online brought by the pandemic has proven a boon for digital-only banks. As of January 2021, 14m Brits (27% of UK adults) had a digital-only bank account—16% growth from January 2020 and a threefold increase compared to January 2019.
The shift has brought forward expectations of the demise of the branch, traditionally the centre of the retail banking experience. According to our annual global banking survey, supported by Temenos, 65% of bankers now believe that the traditional branch-based banking model will be “dead” within five years, while 71% expect cash to represent less than 5% of all retail transactions globally by 2025.
Senior executives report that technology is driving customer experience. Survey respondents cited changing customer behaviours and demands around digital banking, the new technologies needed to understand and serve customers better, and regulation on digital technology (including data protection, which dictates how banks can interact with customers and their data) as the top three trends that will have the biggest impact on banks in their countries by 2025.
Consequently, survey respondents’ top strategic priorities by 2025 are all customer-focused: improving customer experience and engagement, including personalisation and intimacy; mastering digital marketing; and migrating client usage from physical to digital channels.
At Pepper, the focus has been personalisation. When individual customers open the bank’s app, they see a homepage personalised to their specific actions, says Ms Kissos Hertzog. “Different customers will see different products, will receive different marketing.” The goal is a “segment of one”, tailoring the experience precisely to the individual consumer based on their activity and preferences. “The more personalised the service is, the more engaged customers are.”
Technology investment
According to survey respondents, banks’ top investments in customer-related technology include developing artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, such as digital advisors and voiceassisted engagement channels, and advanced and predictive data analytics for customer experience.
Adoption of this technology starts with data, says Ms Hertzog. “Banks are sitting on a humongous amount of data, but they are not doing a good job [of using it],” she says. “I want to use data to give customers a better understanding of their money, to help them decide how to save, to budget, whether they should invest in the stock market."
But she cautions against focusing investment on specific technologies just because they are the latest trend. “I’ve never heard my users saying, ‘I chose you because you have the best artificial intelligence of all banks’. What they care about is that they will have good service, that they’ll see the benefits from their bank, and that we meet their needs,” she says.
“When we speak about technology, it’s important to understand that the technology is not the target, it’s a means to an end. Of course, we have to have great AI, and we are implementing machine learning and blockchain—we’re doing all of that. But we are doing all of that in order to give the best customer experience.”
Capturing value in the cloud
In his latest letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon does not hold back in his embrace of cloud technology. “We cannot overemphasise the extraordinary importance of new technology in the new world,” he writes, referring to the turbocharging effect that covid-19 has had on the adoption of the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services.
Before the pandemic, not all banks were quick to spot the advantages in offloading applications to the cloud, where virtually unlimited computing power allows enormous efficiencies. Banks have generally been slower to take to cloud computing than other sectors. But the adoption of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud infrastructure—for additional processing capacity, improved service capabilities and to outsource data storage—has accelerated since the start of the pandemic, as banks seize an opportunity to cut costs and ramp up their digital transformation projects.
Last year saw a flurry of deals. HSBC committed to using Amazon Web Services to develop new digital products and support security and compliance standards, while Wells Fargo has signed on Microsoft and Google as public cloud providers. Google has agreed similar partnerships with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
This comes as established banks figure out how to use incumbency to fend off fintechs and “challenger” banks, while the newer entrants use the cloud to advance quickly into new market opportunities.
In a new survey of IT executives in the banking sector, conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit and supported by Temenos, more than seven in ten (72%) report that incorporating the cloud into their organisation’s products and services will help them to achieve their business priorities. Just under half (47%) say that it will do so “to a great extent”, with Latin American respondents the most bullish (see Figure 1).
Microsoft, a large player in cloud services, believes that the pandemic has accelerated cloud adoption in four ways that go beyond cost considerations. The first is creation of economic efficiency, by moving away from reliance on a clunky computer mainframe environment. Second is enabling agility and speed to market by, for example, improving the customer onboarding experience in retail banking. Third is reimagining the modern workplace and process modernisation to increase productivity, while fourth is digital innovation through, for instance, the adoption of AI.
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Risky business: Financial compliance and covid-19
Risky business: Financial compliance and covid-19
The covid-19 pandemic has kept workers confined to their homes for months on end, significantly increasing the role of digital tools in keeping a firm connected. In heavily regulated sectors like finance, the sheer volume of communications that is now generated over digital channels is raising crucial questions about whether, how and to what extent organisations should exercise oversight of employee communications.
Related content
The shifting landscape of global wealth: Future-proofing prosperity in a ti...
In some instances the impact of this shift will be shaped by local factors, such as demographic changes. In other instances this shift will reflect shared characteristics, as demonstrated by the greater popularity of overseas investing among younger high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) brought up in an era of globalisation. Whatever the drivers, the landscape of wealth is changing—from local to global, and from one focused on returns to one founded on personal values.
Despite rising economic concerns and a tradition of investor home bias in large parts of the world, the new landscape of wealth appears less interested in borders. According to a survey commissioned by RBC Wealth Management and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), younger HNWIs are substantially more enthusiastic about foreign investing. The U.S. is a particularly high-profile example of a country where a long-standing preference for investments in local markets appears set to be transformed.
Click the thumbnail below to download the global executive summary.
Read additional articles from The EIU with detail on the shifting landscape of global wealth in Asia, Canada, the U.S. and UK on RBC's website.
Fintech in ASEAN
To better understand the opportunities and challenges in developing a fintech business in seven ASEAN markets, The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted wide-ranging desk research supplemented by seven in-depth interviews with executives in Australia and ASEAN.
Download report and watch video interview to learn more.
Risks and opportunities in a changing world
Read our Taxing digital services, U.S. tax reform: The global dimension, & Planning for life after NAFTA articles by clicking the thumbnails below.