The technological transformation of financial markets

The technological transformation of financial markets

Recent technological advancements and regulations have fundamentally reshaped the workings of financial markets. No period in the history of financial markets has seen a transformation as profound and rapid as the past decade and a half. Today’s financial markets are more complex than ever, with this complexity raising a plethora of poorly understood issues, concerns for policymakers and apprehension for investors who must navigate them. Investments in microwave networks in the aid of algorithmic trading at high speeds is now the norm rather than the exception. This investment further raises concerns about a socially costly “arms race” with negative externalities imposed on less sophisticated market participants, and a highly un-even playing field. In this lecture, Prof Ibikunle will present new evidence on the effects of the technological transformation of financial markets on market quality and value, as well as its implication for investments. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session.

This webinar will be of interest to investment management firms and others with interests in understanding the technological transformation of financial markets.

Speaker:

Prof Gbenga Ibikunle is a Professor of Finance at the University of Edinburgh, the Director for Industry, Economy and Society at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Deputy Scientific Director at the Fondazione European Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre in Pescara and a Research Fellow at the RoZetta Institute in Sydney. His work on the microstructure of high-tech financial markets has been of much interest to both practitioners and policymakers, leading to regular speaking engagements and collaborations with financial institutions and market regulators, including at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), where he was a Research Visitor in 2016 and 2017. His research papers on dark pools and interest rate swaps were published by the FCA in 2017. Gbenga has also held Visiting Professorships at Macquarie University, Sydney, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Porto and China University of Petroleum Beijing.