Elly Yates-Roberts |
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the company as a “trusted platform provider” for the financial services sector, during the closing session of last week’s Sibos 2017 event in Toronto, Canada.
“We create technology so that others can create more technology,” said Nadella. “And when I think about of our fundamental role in the financial services sector we want to be that trusted platform provider that is in fact commoditising technology so that you can add value to financial services.”
Nadella opened the discussion by highlighting the need for more computing power to cope with advances in software: “The need for innovation, the need for new technology is even greater but it also comes with us being able to manage unintended consequences of new technology, whether it’s AI or whether it’s cloud or any of these technologies.”
Explaining what really excited him about the future, Nadella said: “I’m excited about mixed reality, but it’s a broader way to look at every experience that you build going forward. It’s not going to be captive to a single device – it’s going to be multi-device, multi-sense…every experience is going to be fused with AI, but the key challenge of AI is first getting your data state on order…The last thing I’m really excited about is new ways to think about compute.”
On the banking industry, he said: “The ability to create more economic opportunity in the world rests on the ability of this industry to continually reinvent itself.”
Nadella concluded on digital transformation within financial services: “Hopefully you are all walking away with the inspiration to continue the hard work of transforming yourself, and knowing that this is not going to be a single quarter or single year journey but I think it’s a generational shift where what is core to banking is going to involve digital capability.”
For more, watch the Sibos 2017 Toronto: Closing Plenary in full.