Big banks may be looking to Silicon Valley for inspiration on how to sell their insights to investors keen for a market edge. A recent LinkedIn job posting for an entry-level sales position may have tipped Goldman Sach’s hand about their intentions to do just that.
In much the same way subscribers pay a monthly fee to Netflix for access to their favorite programs, Wall Street banks could be asking investors to make regular payments in exchange for access to internal information, analytics and risk models.
The job description states the successful candidate will “[d]esign and execute the distribution of GS’ analytics, alerts, proprietary data, and risk/pricing models for service/subscription model globally, including design of sales pipeline tracking framework” and will work with the Head of Data-as-a-Service.
The position would also involve hiring more people and “expand distribution globally as the model is proven through revenue growth and client subscriptions, and as the product suite and addressable market expands”.
Financial institutions have been rebranding themselves as content creators in recent years – writing research, creating models, innovating trade processes and offering new products. In theory, these products could be bundled as part of a subscription service and offered through Goldman Sachs’ Marquee Trading Platform.
“We are focused on making Marquee a world-class digital storefront for all things related to financial markets and risk management for our clients,” a Goldman spokesperson said in a statement. “Monetization strategy is a secondary concern. This will evolve over time.”
The financial sector has seen significant disruption in recent years as old ways of doing business are abandoned, service delivery is reinvented, and audiences are reached through new digital channels. Goldman’s efforts to stay ahead of the tech curve was off to a rocky start with their Marquee Platform but a recent restructuring has made it accessible in a new way.
Goldman is now offering their originally proprietary trading engine, SecDB, as a web application delivered through Marquee. They now include an extensive catalogue of fully-documented APIs and snippets of code that will make it easier for developers to build products using GS’ tech. Clients can now complete their own trades, evaluate portfolios and create unique products via browser, desktop application or API. Other banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America have made their own progress towards making their trading platform tools available to developers.
Of the bank’s bold move, Goldman engineer Andy Phillips said: “We want to be to quantitative finance what Amazon is to computing power. Historically, banks made products that portfolio managers and traders wanted to use. Now we’re making products that developers want to use.”
