Symphony celebrates industry recognition
See what makes Cloud9 standout in the financial services industry. In this interview between Symphony’s Michael Lynch and WatersTechnology’s Victor Anderson.
Over millions of years, the human world has grown massively complex. Some might even say threatening. Accelerating change is now altering core concepts of risk, volatility and even reality itself.
We all understand that the world is full of risk, yet few realize that risk itself is increasing and at an increasing rate. Growing pools of risk are starting to intersect with each other, creating a multiplying effect.
Marketplace dangers, such as prime brokerage failures or settlement risk join a growing list of news events. “Black swans” such as the Archegos default, Swiss Franc volatility, banking “fat-fingers” and the pandemic itself, all point to one uncomfortable truth.
The world is experiencing more volatility events at a greater velocity, with a greater variability of outcomes.
The Law of Cause and Effect defines how things and events relate and the different outcomes that may result. To truly understand volatility this is where you must begin.
There are three factors fueling these upheavals, the “Three V’s” of Volatility, Velocity and Variability.
More intense and frequent cycles of volatility are driving higher highs and lower lows, with global events now occurring more often.
More intense and frequent cycles of volatility are driving higher highs and lower lows, with global events now occurring more often. Within this, the actual speed of volatility changes are increasing. In turn, this drives a greater variability of results. A wider spread of potential outcomes creates bigger winners and a longer tail of losers. Iconic examples like Amazon, Blockbuster, Blackberry, and Apple illustrate this.
The “Three V’s’’ drive a “Volatility Monster” that threatens the world we know. The Vol Monster is always lurking. It’s just a matter of how hungry it is, at any given time. Technology is now a major force prodding and enabling it.
Today’s aggressive level of change is transforming yesterday’s technology evolution into tomorrow’s revolution. But let’s contextualize all this through the lens of history and some science.
Market professionals know that interest rates have been declining for 40 years. Meanwhile credit has been increasing for the past 20 years. And stocks go bust at times. Against that background, we overlay the convergent cycle of technical revolution. This “revolution” is really just a confluence of several principles, all happening simultaneously:
In his essay on “The Changing World Order,” hedge fund manager Ray Dalio describes a similar dynamic in economics. Mr. Dalio’s “Big Machine Cycle” details how an economy is merely the aggregate of many transactions, simultaneously occurring in all of its markets, which drive the macro-economic cycles.
All these cases are the same dynamic over a different backdrop, whether climate change, biology or economics. And, in an increasingly complex and technical world, these principles become a guide for us. Ultimately, these factors will determine which companies will dominate or survive… and which will not.
Successful companies are defined by the common precepts of: high volume, quick reaction and low processing time. However, many companies only focus on one or perhaps two of these three. Yet they are all necessary.
For all companies in the long run it’s critical to be able to achieve all three, even in the most volatile environments, and that is extremely difficult.
Adapting to changing economic cycles can be difficult. Thomas Friedman’s “Thank You for Being Late” and the principals of Moore, Metcalfe, and Wright establish the groundwork for long-term viability during times of volatility.
Yesterday’s oil shortages and trade wars are today’s inflation and supply chain. This is systemic stress driving radical change.
Similarly, people think businesses started to decentralize with the pandemic. In fact the decentralized finance movement, or DeFi, was already underway; 2020 merely accelerated this pace. Symphony has been empowering decentralization through open architecture since our inception in 2014.
In that time, we’ve built a decentralized network that makes people more capable — as well as more empowered by technology’s evolution.
Today, employees and customers are operating in a decentralized manner at “the Edge.”
As business becomes less centered around an office, financial workflows become larger, more complex, and distributed across multiple teams. Operating at this Edge is only possible through technology. But the Edge is not the Cloud. It isn’t even a specific place. It’s anywhere that the person is, and technology itself is continually pushing all of us towards this decentralized Edge. Yet this Edge presents some challenges.
There are the obvious business issues, such as security and compliance risk. There are also less obvious concerns such as the human challenge of simply keeping people connected.
Not technology connection. Rather, the emotional connection of people themselves. Because when folks operate remotely, they often feel like they’re missing something. That sense of disconnect materializes as business problems. But it’s really a human problem.
The Edge consists of three components: applications, people and data. Applications allow people and data to interact. When people are decentralized, they get stressed. When data is decentralized, it gets dumb. A networked infrastructure is what keeps everything optimized. That is what we deliver.
This means we enable people to operate independently but also to work together. The sense of community and connectedness results in a networked market infrastructure.
When the business world began seriously considering decentralization, Symphony was already there. Being at the Edge enabled Symphony to meet people exactly where they wanted to be met. During the Pandemic volatility of 2020, the entire planet went through a lengthy paralysis. Symphony helped people and their firms to successfully navigate that crucial period. Through us, financial professionals remained connected to each other, and companies continued functioning in a seamless fashion. As the world continues to evolve, both technology itself and Symphony’s role as the enabler of it, will accelerate.
But this evolution is not simply a technology dynamic. Decentralized people must still remain just as effective in their roles. This can only happen through connection.
Thus, Symphony’s unique selling proposition is precisely that connection.
Symphony helped people and their firms to successfully navigate that crucial period. Through us, financial professionals remained connected to each other, and companies continued functioning in a seamless fashion.
As such, Symphony’s technological inclusivity and empowerment helps foster a sense of belonging across our industry. Even when separated by physical distance, people want to remain connected. Our platform makes this possible.
By tethering the people, the firms and their workflows, we ultimately become the bridge for the industry itself. A bridge of trust.
Nearly everything that creates business advantage always stems from proper networking and engaging with people.
In the end, business is not about open-source, API’s and secure cloud platforms. Rather, it is really about people. More specifically, it’s about one’s ability to interact with partners, colleagues and customers in a trusted environment. From that understanding, comes all the technology solutions we deliver.
Nearly everything that creates business advantage always stems from proper networking and engaging with people.
This is the real business of Symphony.
Of course, humans are enabled by technology. Yet they only create massive value in the combination of deep trust and thoughtful risk-taking.
Symphony itself appears to be just a network. Ostensibly, we are a technology platform with a large number of people and applications on it. But really, this is an organization that fosters a community of trust. We are proud to be leading the market in the move towards decentralization. However, Symphony is actually a servant in this equation. Yes, we make your outcomes better. But it is your trust that makes this possible.
Symphony is steering the world towards the delivery of a very different way of working. Our industry is moving from the familiar world of centralized exchanges and clouds to a less-structured future that is distributed, decentralized and virtual. The combination of technology, people and trust is the key to achieving this transition successfully.
Symphony represents the leveraging of technology to connect people. Not just in a business sense but also in the emotional linking of humans. We are a builder, not a disruptor. Our firm has been entrusted with incrementally moving a growing community through the global revolution at hand. Chat is where we started, although we’ve progressed beyond that.
A worldwide moment of change is where we all are today. Symphony will continue enabling this transition at every stage, through trust and technology. The decentralized Edge is where we are going.
See what makes Cloud9 standout in the financial services industry. In this interview between Symphony’s Michael Lynch and WatersTechnology’s Victor Anderson.
Every year, Symphony Innovate brings together industry leaders to share insights, showcase live demos of products, integrations and workflow automations, as well as provide case studies on how technological advancements have transformed the community.
Innovate New York 2024 featured live demos and new innovations in action from Symphony, Citi, DTCC, Eidosmedia, HUB, LoanBook, RBC & MDX Technologies, Taskize, TP ICAP & ipushpull, UBS, Wells Fargo, 28Stone and more.
Symphony is now in its tenth year of developing secure and compliant communications technology for global financial market participants. With over 500,000 users and more than 1300 firms using Symphony solutions, our industry relevance [and reliance] is widely recognized by clients, partners, regulators and journalists.