The impact of automation

In financial services, technology is reshaping the front office

Financial institutions have been making strides toward a customer-centric culture. Do the customers feel it yet?

They might before long. Digital disruption is threatening incumbent firms’ control over the customer experience, prompting leading firms to take a harder look at the makeup of their front office. To understand some of the ways that this is playing out, let’s look at the front office from three angles: automation, regulation, and talent.

Why the middle office is about to get a lot more attention

It’s time to give the middle office its due.

This much-overlooked function of financial services—which supports the front office with resources drawn from finance, accounting, and IT—bears enormous responsibility. Middle office personnel are on the front lines of regulation, standards, and compliance. They’re also the ones who must keep revenue producers within defined parameters of risk, even as they enable the most advantageous deals they can.

What lies in store for the middle office?

Three trends that are redefining the back office

The back office is the engine of a financial institution. Until now, that’s meant structure, reliability, and efficiency—all things that are independent of revenue. But the competitive forces bearing down on financial services are also changing the way we ordinarily think about financial operations.

Read on for three examples.