Finance Monthly - December 2021

big part of the UK’s emergence as a global financial hub has been its willingness to adopt technological innovation, and this status looks set to remain thanks to the recent development of and investment in pioneering, industry- disrupting technology. We’re now firmly in the FinTech era, and British founded, online-first banks such as Starling and Monzo are beginning to challenge traditional institutions. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are also fast becoming a household concept, and it’s clear that technology’s influence on FS is only growing. But not everyone is embracing technological change with open arms, as amongst FS workers there remains a sense of apprehension. The reason why? Automation. In many instances, automation technology is already able to replicate large portions of FS workers’ roles, given its ability to quickly and efficiently handle process-heavy, repetitive, and often administrative tasks that humans tend to struggle with. From a productivity perspective, the benefits of this are clear, but the issue for employees is that this tech threatens to displace them as it becomes more prevalent in the workplace. This could cause huge unemployment issues in the short term, whilst in the long term, it could also lead to a massive gap between the skillsets employers need in workers to perform their role and the actual skills possessed by possible future employees. With new technology comes new pressures This apprehension amongst workers in the FS sector, including insurance, is understandable, as this sense of pressure on their roles is underpinned by data. Our research indicates that a huge 20.8% of all roles in FS/insurance in the UK are potentially automatable before 2026, whilst 13.6% could potentially be augmented by automation and technology over the same period. Whilst potential doesn’t always necessarily equate to actualisation, these figures still Finance Monthly. Bank i ng & F i nanc i a l Se r v i ce s 65