6th Asset management X Fintech workshop on 19 December

Our 6th Asset Management x Fintech workshop held on 19 December was a really special session to close 2019 and look ahead to 2020 with a presentation on the use of alternative data in the Japanese asset management industry and presentations by 3 Japanese companies selected for FINTECH 100 by KPMG recently.

Ryuichi Murasawa, Director, KPMG AZSA spoke about a survey by JIAM on the current use of alternative data by Japanese asset management firms, vision for the future and challenges facing a widespread use of such data in Japan. JIAM has so far interviewed 10 firms. 75% are already using such data, mostly text data of analyst reports, financial result press conferences etc to complement traditional financial data. But there are challenges that need to be addressed for the industry to embrace its full potential, eg data reliability and safe and compliant use of data, need of specialists and reducing the trouble of data cleansing and preparation.

We then had presentations by Morifumi Yotsumoto of Alpaca, Ryosuke Fujii of TORANOTEC and Shinichiro Kai of FOLIO. Alpaca provides financial market prediction AI solution．

TORANOTECtec and FOLIO are B2C asset management fintechs which are trying to unlock the personal financial wealth in Japan through services which make investment easier and more fun. It was great to have these 3 companies who share the same mission as JIAM which is to modernise and strengthen asset management in Japan.

Some key messages

• Moving away from an AUM size oriented business model widens the possibility for fund managers.
• The importance of PMF (Product Market Fit) for PFM (Personal Finance Management).
• For alternative data, competitiveness should come from after having the data in place, not from spending resources on collecting and cleaning them.