Bloomberg Hosts Exclusive Future of Financial Technology Event with Adena Friedman, President and CEO of Nasdaq

Bloomberg hosted a private luncheon today in Hong Kong with 50 of the region’s C-suite executives coming together to discuss the Future of Financial Technology with Adena Friedman, President and CEO of Nasdaq.

Leading the charge in transforming Nasdaq into a technology company, Ms. Friedman spoke about what new marketplace technologies – machine intelligence, blockchain and quantum computing – will have on the structure of capital markets, and its impact on the investment world.

Asked about the biggest near-term technology disruptions, Ms. Friedman referenced blockchain as an “elegant technology” that will prove to create efficiencies for banks, as the industry grapples with its implications on finance. Over time, she thinks regulators will start to see its benefits in the ecosystem. Bitcoin, on the other hand, she termed a “nascent asset class,” which still needs time to mature.

Just as the electronification of markets offered opportunities to millions of individual investors, Ms. Friedman pointed out that technology today is poised to create market-based economies across industries where until now only seller’s economies existed.

She termed it the “Markets Economy.” In her view, the Markets Economy will create a greater level playing field between buyers and sellers.

Looking ahead towards the future of financial technology, Ms. Friedman discussed how Nasdaq approaches fintech in a number of ways – by deepening in-house expertise, as well as through its venture fund and via acquisitions. One example of a successful fintech project is its Analytics Hub, which brings in third-party content and applies data science and machine intelligence to find market signals and monitor trades, so clients can make more informed investment decisions.

With a view on China, Ms. Friedman highlighted the growing number of technology companies going public and the potential of the biotech and healthcare sectors. She spoke about how the various China Connect schemes have afforded access to global institutional investors, and was bullish about the Greater China region for the next decade.

In opening remarks for the session, Jeffrey Leckstein, head of Bloomberg Hong Kong, noted that the one of the things that stand out in the evolution of exchanges is the changing role it has played over centuries.

The Future of Financial Technology is part of Bloomberg’s Future of Finance event series catered exclusively to C-suite and business leaders. Click here to find out more about the series.

Watch Adena Friedman’s interview at the 2018 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos on Bloomberg Television here.