Using Google and O*NET data from the past 10 years for typical finance roles, Reed Finance developed the interactive online tool on stateofskills.reedglobal.com. It found that written and verbal communication is prized by employers of finance professionals, with ‘oral comprehension’ (an understanding of what people are trying to say) and ‘written comprehension’ (understanding written ideas and information) ranked as the most valued skills. This is in comparison to traditionally assumed skills such as ‘economics and accounting’ and ‘deductive reasoning’ which are ranked as the fourth and 10th most important.
Reed Finance suggests that this is due to the future strategies of companies wishing to see finance executives take on leadership roles which entail not only technical soundness, but also an ability to inspire and work as a leader of teams – with ‘active listening’ and ‘oral comprehension’ some of the most important skills for a CFO to have.
Firms value ‘human skills’ such as communication over technical accounting skillset.
As such, ‘human’ skills are prominent in successful candidates for roles such as management accounting and FP&A management. This may suggest that these workers have the skillset to take upon more senior roles.
Securing the right talent
Reed Finance found that the level of interest from candidates for the majority of roles in accountancy and finance had been consistent over the past decade, but there are some notable exceptions.
Interest in CFOs peaked in April 2013, higher by 111% in comparison to January 2012. The trend is even starker for finance business partners. From only modest interest in October 2009 popularity has continued to increase rapidly over the decade hitting a peak in July 2018 that is almost 2500% higher. The stark rise reflects a change in the industry towards finance professionals with strong communication skills informing and guiding the business.
Interest in finance business partners has increased from near non-existence in October 2009 by 2333% to a peak in July 2018.
Rob Russell, director at Reed Finance, says: “Businesses are in direct competition for employees that can bring ‘human’ skills to the table, not just technical accounting and number crunching. The influx of AI in the workplace is helping to enhance the numerical skillsets within these teams, so there will be greater time for high-level creativity. Companies want candidates that can communicate, secure business wins and manage teams so that they perform to the best of their ability. These changes to a more fluid, creative workplace are creating great opportunities for those within the finance sector.”
Software use is essential to success but becomes less important with greater seniority
The research conducted also investigated the tools that must be mastered for success in these roles, encouraging businesses to upgrade their software where necessary.
Rob Russell continues: “Every day working with businesses we find that tech is there to enhance the performance of individuals. While candidates should endeavour to keep up with the latest accounting tools on the market, businesses are increasingly looking for those that can win new business and demonstrate a return on investment.
“For candidates, developing the ability to take complex finance information they deal with on a daily basis and using it to answer the question, ‘what does this mean for the business?’ will set them aside from colleagues. This, coupled with commercial nous, has always been an advantage, but now it seems it is even more sought after as business leaders search for the candidates that can secure the future of their business.”
(Source: www.reedglobal.com/finance)
New research by BAE Systems has found that 74% of business customers think banks use machine learning and artificial intelligence to spot money laundering. In reality banks rely on human investigators to manually sift through alerts – a hard-to-believe fact selected only by 31% of respondents. This lack of automation and modern processes is having a major impact on efficiency and expense when it comes to the fight against money laundering.
Brian Ferro, Global Compliance Solutions Product Manager at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, said: “Compliance investigators at banks can spend up to three days of their working week dealing with alerts – which most of the time are false positives. By occupying key personnel with these manual tasks, banks are limiting the investigators’ role, impacting on their ability to stop criminal activity.”
Money laundering is known to fund and enable slavery, drug trafficking, terrorism, corruption and organised crime. Three quarters (75%) of business customers surveyed see banks as central actors in the fight against money laundering. The penalty for failing to stop money laundering can be high for banks – and is not restricted to significant fines. When questioned, 26% of survey respondents said they would move their business’ banking away from a bank that had been found guilty and fined for serious and sustained money laundering that it had not identified.
Ferro continued: “For banks to be on the front foot against money laundering, their investigators need to be supported by machine intelligence. Simplifying, optimising and automating the sorting of these alerts to give human investigators more time is the single most valuable thing banks and the compliance industry can do in the fight against money launderers. Right now, small improvements in efficiency of the systems banks use to find laundering can yield huge results.
“At BAE Systems we use a combination of intelligence-led advanced analytics to track criminals through the world’s financial networks. By putting machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to work to narrow down the number of alerts, human investigators can concentrate on tasks more suited to their talents and insight.”
(Source: BAE Systems)
The AI technology has been picking up steam in the past couple of years. It’s no longer a gimmick or a faraway fiction. Scientists from all around the world are slowly but surely cracking this riddle. Sure, they are still a long journey away from creating a true Artificial Intelligence, but each year we see significant breakthroughs in this field.
Today, you can find some form of AI in many everyday places. For example, Alexa and Siri are world famous AI assistants. They will create appointments, answer your questions, set alarms, shop, and a million other things. Another great example is the Tesla car. Thanks to Tesla’s AI, self-driving cars are no longer a work of fiction.
But what about the poker industry? Surely there must be an AI capable of playing poker at high levels. The answer is yes, there is. This infographic will show you how the poker’s AI developed throughout the history, as well as where it is now. You can find a lot of interesting stats and information in this infographic, but if you are interested in reading more about poker related stuff, visit our website.
