There are a lot of opportunities in finance (particularly in Asia), but you have to leave the beaten track. And stock market operators are the most important fintech companies today. There are also plenty of disruption opportunities in Fintech 2.0. So says William Pang of Capital Group in an interview with Investment Officer.
Equity analyst William Pang underlines that he is rather cautious around Asian banks. After all, they have consistently lagged behind the broad stock market index. The average ROE of Asian banks has fallen from 15 per cent to 7.4 per cent over the past 10 years. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for banks to generate returns for shareholders.” He sees four reasons for this downward trend.
“First, the Japanisation or the long period of low interest rates makes it difficult to make money from lending. Second, the increase in capital requirements after the financial crisis and third, the disruption caused by fintech companies. And fourthly, there is not only increasing competition within the sector but also from other non-financial players such as Alibaba, Tencent, Amazon and Facebook.” Finally, he adds that banks now have to make the choice between innovating or dying a slow death.
Stock market operators
For Andy Budden (pictured), disruption has created an ideal environment for stock pickers, and stock market operators he labels as the biggest fintech companies in the world.
“We view them positively because they are ideally placed to take advantage of some strong secular trends,” he said. “And these are the rise of financial markets in China, the growth of derivatives, the increasing importance of data and the profound transformation of trading. The changed composition of Goldman Sachs’ NY office illustrates this. Some 20 years ago, there were 600 stock traders, today there are only 2, supplemented by 200 programmers. Machines have taken over from people, making data so important, and the London Stock Exchange (LSE), thanks in part to the acquisition of Refinitiv, is ideally placed. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), for its part, is benefiting from the increase in derivatives trading.”
According to Budden, stock market operators used to be cyclical but this is no longer the case due to these new underlying trends.
Pang, on the other hand, finds insurance companies interesting. “Especially those operating in faster-growing economies and benefiting from increasing demand for financial services such as life insurance. In emerging Asia, the middle class is growing strongly while in developed countries we are seeing a further build-up of wealth and this is playing to their advantage. Insurance companies that have distribution channels in Asia are at the top of our league table,” he concludes.
Disruption and fintech
Both Capital Group executives also deal with fintech and its implications on a daily basis. We are on the eve of a very interesting fintech era, according to William Pang. “During Fintech 1.0, existing things like online banking were digitised, nothing more. Now, however, we are seeing the rise of Fintech 2.0 with companies using technology to introduce new and innovative products. A great example is the introduction of a digital wallet by Alipay.” Ultimately, he expects fintech to cause disruption in every aspect of finance and in the coming quarters he sees a flood of newer fintech companies going public.
Budden adds that we have not yet seen the final stage of the transformation to a digital financial system. But according to the head of equity investments, it is not yet too late for traditional financial groups.
“There is still time and space for them to come up with answers against the disruptive fintech players. And in recent years we have already seen responses from some traditional players in developed markets and this movement is starting to show in the numbers. In Bank of America’s latest figures, 49 per cent of its consumer division’s sales came through digital channels.”
And what about crypto?
The pair also shared their personal views on crypto since, as financial professionals, they cannot possibly ignore crypto. William Pang is not focused on the price of bitcoin and other crypto like the media, but looks mainly at the potential of decentralised finance (DeFi). “This technology has the potential to break the current status quo of a centralised financial system. Financial intermediaries could lose their role.”
He also believes that central banks should come up with an adequate response to crypto. Budden confirms and underlines that of the 50 financial authorities worldwide, about half are researching their own digital currency.
“The risk is that private savings will migrate from commercial to central banks and lending will shift and the former will become smaller. So they will also have to take this competition into account.”