Not everyone likes change. No matter how small.
But embracing change can be good if it allows room for more progress — especially if that progress is promised by insights from carefully backed research.
Through our recent partnership with Gartner, a member of the S&P 500 and leading global research and advisory firm in the U.S., our internal team had gathered critical insights about the role of digital transformation in banking and investment services industry for this coming year.
Here’s what we’ve learned:
Digital is Priority
Gartner’s survey collected insights from 3,102 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in Business and Investment Services (BIS) firms from 89 countries across major industries. Of those respondents, 34% of CIOs at top-performing financial firms recorded that a strategic move to digital is a priority for their businesses, compared to 31% of all-industry top performers and 23% of typical performers.
“Digital” in this context means “the use of digital technologies and approaches designed to meet end-users’ future needs.”
AI is Hot Topic
BIS CIOs place an unusually high emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI) as a game-changing technology for the financial services industry. Ranked as number one on the list, AI amounts to 27% compared to 25% for typical and 24% for trailing performers. Many believe that AI can either improve existing products and/or services or identify “new opportunities to enable new products and services that never existed.” In most cases, CIOs at BIS firms tend to focus more on the former rather than the latter.
More Funding
While spending on AI technology for financial services trails behind top performers — 28% for financial services and 48% for top performers, this doesn’t dismiss the importance of integrating AI technology into their systems. Gartner notes that many CIOs at BIS firms are careful about how they utilize AI more practically. They want to see first where to “monetize this technology for the benefit of their internal processes for their external consumers.” This goes with the previous idea that many BIS firms want to improve their existing products and/or services through AI, rather than use AI to create new products.
So… What Now?
One thing we know for sure is that financial industries rely on AI and all things digital to accelerate their growth in the future. This means our focus should be on tech, not finance.
Robo-Advisory is no longer something we should work towards. With regulations and tough competitions in South Korea, we just can’t afford to lose any more time. QARA was founded with a mission to help the financial sector through our deep learning technology. And deep learning technology is what we are good at. It’s what we are specialized in.
Our core technology, called the Market Dreamer, uses the latest CNN & RNN deep learning algorithms to gather the most accurate and up-to-date data to analyze and create the following week’s market predictions. It analyzes over 30 years of market history and utilizes nearly 400 million data, including news reports, company profiles, equity markets, fixed income levels, and over 18,000 major stocks, financial indexes, and cryptocurrencies.
So through advice and insights from Gartner, QARA has decided to shift its focus from robo-advisory to research and analytics — using the AI deep learning technology.
One Step Closer
Our Founder and CEO Luke ChangHwan Byun attended a seminar called “Data Meets Business” during Trend Day on October 24th.
Trend Day is a monthly meeting held at the famous 63 Building in Yeouido, Seoul to discuss new trends and exchange ideas.
With over 70 attendees, Luke gave a presentation about how data can integrate into business and even empower the financial sector. He introduced QARA and discussed our deep learning technology. He said, “deep learning is QARA, QARA is deep learning,” meaning that two are one and the same. Connecting data science with business has always been a passion for Luke. To see so many people feel the same way was a great sight for QARA.
Partnership with Hankyung TV
Also on October 24th, QARA announced a collaboration with Hankyung TV’s stock information service app called Jushik Chang.
Through the collaboration, QARA’s financial forecasting and analytics app KOSHO will provide market analyses and predictions through its deep learning algorithms and help determine if the market will rise or fall in the near future.
With Jushik Chang, users can click the hexagonal shape at the bottom of the stock window to view individual stocks’ forecasts and detailed analyses. Anyone who purchased monthly memberships (one month, three months, and six months) will have the option to view unlimited individual stocks. In addition to KOSHO, there are seven other firms in the app that provide stock analyses at Jushik Chang.
Final Words
Founded in 2014, QARA has gone through multiple ups and downs. But what has always remained is its passion to build a better world through deep learning technology. In light of the new insights from Gartner, QARA is yet again making changes and improving its services. And with the recent seminar at 63 Building as well as the partnership with Hankyung TV, QARA seems to be doing just fine so far.
QARA always welcomes change because progress is a sure sign that we are on the right track. As the genius Benjamin Franklin once said:
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
Our app KOSHO is available to download on the App Store and Google Play Store. Click here to see more!
