Investment and Financial professionals have been urged to take advantage of the digital revolution to maximize investor returns during and post the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Industrialization CS Betty Maina, the accelerated demand for financial and operational efficiencies as a result of the ongoing pandemic should serve as a wake-up call for financial analysts and investment professionals to re-align their business models in line with the digital revolution.
“The advent of the digital revolution means that the new generation of investors is more informed and more discerning than their parents, or the older generation of investors’’, said CS Maina.
On the global scale, the financial and operational constraints occasioned by the COVID-19 Pandemic have seen investment and financial institutions realign business models accordingly while accelerating the pace of technological change to meet the emerging operational demands.
C.S Maina while speaking during the opening of the Institute of Certified Investment and Financial Analysts (ICIFA) second International Investment Conference on the future of investing held earlier in the month also anticipated growth in investment needs in the future.
‘‘In the next few years, we’ll see more and more investment strategies for those who want to invest, but who do not have a lot of extra money available”, she said, adding that as the global economy shifts through the rapid changes, the finance industry will be required to be at the forefront of innovation through technology.
The greater expansion of the FinTech space in Kenya, which has resulted in the increased use of digital assets and currencies (such as cryptocurrency) as alternative mediums of exchange speaks to an enabling policy environment for FinTech innovation.
The CS reaffirmed the government’s commitment to continue creating an enabling investment environment for both public and private sector investors, through appropriate policy measures and targeted transformative actions aimed at increasing and diversifying investments.
“To maximize on this progress, the Government will continue to address any emerging issues in our legislative and regulatory frameworks, to further promote investments in key high potential areas.”
The two-day conference sought to address issues in the financial and investment industry among them, the potential of new technologies to disrupt financial and capital markets, Regulatory Policy and Strategy, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning as well as the impact of COVID19.
