Robert Stanich


by Vasyl Soloshchuk, CEO and Co-Owner at INSART

Robert J. Stanich

Global Banking and Financial Markets Offering Manager at IBM Watson Financial Services

For this interview, we met with Robert J. Stanich, an offering manager for the wealth-management and banking arms at IBM Watson Financial Services. He first came to Wall Street about 20 years ago when he started working on cyber security and resiliency for PwC.

Later on, Robert continued his career in finance at global investor banks on the security of custom trading and security settlement platforms. That period of time can be considered significant since .com business really took off. It was at this point that Robert moved to the management consultancy sector and worked a lot with the original e-brokers who were the first to offer discount brokerage through the Internet.

For more than two decades Robert has worked with various US national and regional brands, where he was managing transformation and developing new technologies, as well as working on a number of broker-dealer mergers across the country.

Subsequently, when IBM first introduced Watson, Robert was a part of the team creating wealth-management oriented service offerings that were built upon machine learning and cognitive platforms. About three years ago, Robert moved full-time into the software role with what is now called Watson Financial Services.

Here, we present his thoughts on industry trends and important drivers behind the industry’s development.

Demographic and regulatory changes

We’re seeing an obvious demographic shift as we come into an unprecedented period of wealth transfer in the US. There have also been some significant regulatory shifts across markets not only in North America (US, Canada) but also in Europe, the UK, and Australia.

As Robert states:

“We’ve emerged from a financial crisis that tarnished investors’ perception of many incumbent brands that failed to protect them through the downturn. Because of that, I think the industry has being challenged on the value they’re really able to deliver to their clients and at what cost.”

Moreover, Robert is positive that the digital (technological) change is part of that, playing a major role in recognition that advisors have not delivered investment performance through the crisis. As a result, we are seeing some fee compression and a shift towards less stock-picking-type activity and more holistic financial advice being provided.

As Robert notes, traditionally we have seen the brokerage business move from trading proprietary products into more of an agency world. This is why we are continuing to see innovation in compensation models—i.e., fee- or subscription-based approaches. The proliferation of the independent channels of some of the traditional wirehouses or manufacturing-type distribution channels are driving a lot of technological change, rather than the other way around.

The robo-component and the likelihood that it will replace humans

Robert is confident that robo-advice entering the market has an overwhelmingly positive impact, and has created a price discovery and transparency around the value of investment selection and automated rebalancing.

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