Alex Floate, a member of our Emerging Fellows program travels into the future and envisions the coming finance system his sixth blog post. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the APF or its other members.

Late in the last century, the movie “Wall Street” introduced us to a world of men in three-piece suits vying for domination in the world of finance. ‘Greed is good’ was their motto and Wall Street was the magnet for the unending supply of MBA’s from elite American universities. With financial knowledge and a thirst for success, they became corporate raiders and white knights keen on dismantling what was left of American industry. They spawned dramatizations in the personas of Gordon Gecko and Edward Lewis in the movies “Wall Street” and “Pretty Woman”. Just like Hollywood at the height of the silver screen, this was a place where dreams come true, even if it was at the expense of blue-collar workers or lesser investors.

By the late 1990’s however, magazines were asking ‘where have the raiders gone’, and the internet was the new kid in town. Tech stocks were the rage and most of the action had moved west to Silicon Valley. It was inevitable, but not widely acknowledged that much of Wall Street would soon be run by computers and algorithms, and the big personalities that formerly would have been leading raids would diminish in size and importance.

MBA mills multiplied during the early part of the 21^st Century, but the real action by 2020 was with quantitative analysts, or “quants” as they were called. Blending an understanding of finance with deep knowledge of mathematics and computer science, they were the minds behind the complex models that drove most of the pricing and trading of securities. Even though the suits with MBAs still held the top jobs, the people in white collars felt them slowly tightening around their necks.

The new digital collar belonged to a Millennial or GenWebster (someone born after the internet became widespread) wearing a t-shirt or hoodie, but fully versed in the internet and its ever-evolving abilities and culture. They were quants, cybersecurity experts, app developers, data specialists, and refugees from the banking industry. They had connections and financial knowledge to take on the task before them; bring financial applications and products to their generations without the costs of brokers, agents or physical storefronts.

New words describing finance were entering the lexicon – fintech, blockchain, appification and others that this time did not originate from Wall Street. Finance technology start-ups began popping up in areas such as the Silicon Fen in the U.K., Israeli’s Silicon Wadi, Bangalore India, and Shenzhen in China. Some were being bought up by larger traditional finance and bank companies as they wanted to position themselves for the digital future everyone was predicting. Usually the business siphoned some of the best ideas but neglected to further the primary idea behind it; lower cost, easy access with speed and efficiency.

At first the conventional finance organizations counted on their position in finance system as storehouses of money and trust, with the emphasis on Trust. The men and women with the digital collars kept at it though and advanced the technologies of blockchain and cryptocurrency. As the GenWebsters began to gain in financial clout they embraced the new finance products and eschewed traditional banks, brokerages and insurance companies. The white collars tightened again.