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Putting the Labour/Blair thing to one side and responding to the fraud expansion comment, I do see UK Fintech leaders in real-time fraud detection and complex fraud detection (tax, AML, fincrime, etc). I've worked for two such firms.

Complex financial crime is easier to detect than it used to be. Money launderers, organized criminals and tax dodgers have far fewer places to hide. Also, streaming real-time analytics, including model inference at scale in-memory and with distributed memory, with much-improved model deployments (types and agility to recalibrate) is powerful and increasingly democratized.

That said, I'd also note that fintech favourite, crypto, is the criminal's friend and I'd hope there's a responsible crypto strategy in the bag of tricks of the next UK Govt.

Very good. I'd not seen it! Quite agree. Cassandra is my old stomping ground!

Hey Ketharaman Swaminathan. Thanks for the comments! Great to hear from you.

This dates me, but my baseball knowledge is centered on Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Junior (apparently there's a junior version of junior I saw the other day). 

Ex.3 - having just watched a webinar earlier today on the failure of stress testing models (admittedly capital/risk ones rather than bog standard portfolios) with GFC and more recently Covid, I wonder if I should have waited before posting it because I might have added extra layers. My inspiration at the time was less the model itself but more around the democratization of the human linguistic prompt that any non-Quant/coding PM might make. After today's webinar, though, I might be tempted to throw in the real extreme scenarios into the mix, the black swan scenarios which the LLM might be able to make sense of, but my model perhaps can't "imagine". Thus the LLM output could adapt weights and correlate up dependent factors, possibly make sense of related factors that inform the "copula"-like thing which seeds the simulation, etc. Your point is completely valid!

Great article and extremely well-written, but the use of terms like "embedded technology" and to a lesser extent "embedded finance" has software engineering/development connotations, which gets morphed yet more when applied to finance.  

Interesting article. I think it's sort of like comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruit, but serve different types.

As someone who used to work at MATLAB, I see Python having increasing relevance where MATLAB once dominated, in rapid functional/numerical development and integration for applications like pricing, risk, trading strategies, portfolio modelling. However, I think it has a way to go before matching on Java in the back-end piping and security.

For Java (I work for a Java provider), Oracle is less of a steward these days, but is certainly present and active, plus others have stepped up to the plate in a way that I'm not sure has quite happened for Python.

Plus financial firms are represented on the Java Execs. 

Also, high profile Python projects like Quartz and Athena, terrific initiatives for sure, haven't always met with universal approval.

But Python is amazing. I've a tremendous respect for people like Wes McKinney and Saeed Amen who really drive forward the use of Python. Pandas was the game changer in my opinion

Good article ! Thanks !

I've written on this topic on few occasions, here (https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/18119/the-non-contradiction-of-proprietary-finance-and-community-open-source-programming) and here (https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/18315/financial-services-firms-must-contribute-more-software-repos-to-retain-staff-and-stay-relevant) most recently

I think the leadership of banks in using Java, R, Python, even the C languages is testimony to their use of OSS; Goldman Sachs and a couple of other financial organizations are high up in the Java Exec committee too.

Where I think they're less prevalant is in contributing back to open source, but that's changing ! 

Steve

Hi Denis. Lots. Looking beyond the finance industry (though applicable to it) is how far standards, for example around the SCADA replacement SparkPlug/MQTT, can truly ensure security. Multfactor authentication is one thing, but the software underneath is another. Server-device connectivity used to be simple, too simple, because the network connectivity piece behind has exploded. Massive risk IMHO.

Well-written relevant article ! Thanks !

I was lucky enough to spend some time studying the Western Union alternative to the submarine Atlantic telegraph, the so-called Collins Overland Telegraph (conceived mid 1850s, "built" 1865-1867) connecting NY to LDN via San Francisco, British Columbia, Russian America over the Bering Strait into Siberia and around the Sea of Okhotsk ultimately hoping to join the Russian telegraph system at Nicolayevsk.

While the corporate structures of the Western Union Extension Co was part-militaristic, part-Google, their financial planning was scuppered by the aboriginal peoples in Russian America and Siberia not recognizing "money". Another historical lesson for those purporting the universal applicability of Blockchain.

Needless to say the telegraph line was never operable, but the rhetoric, publicity and money invested in it was Blockchain-esque.