By Mark P. Dangelo
The mortgage and financial industries are looking forward to 2024 seeking out operational efficiencies, a relief from regulatory oversight, and a rebalancing of interest rates to spur demand (e.g., origination, refinancing). The markets continue to consolidate favoring large providers as the number of financial institutions shrink creating a void of middle-sized institutions. Additionally, with M&A projected to rebound in 2024 with an estimated $35 trillion of untapped acquisition cash, those firms struggling within BFSI hoping to ride out the chaos may find themselves the targets of reinvigorated private equity firms. IMB models of operation could themselves target casualties of FinTech’s capabilities.
However, while the macroeconomic conditions continue to rebalance and demand hits its likely lows, the innovative opportunities for those within the BFSI and mortgage worlds have never been greater. As 2023 witnessed a watershed event for generative AI (e.g., Chat GPT), the progression across the AI spectrum will accelerate even more as software designs are coded into hardware chips (e.g., Microsoft), generative AI becomes generalized AI (e.g., Q* from Open AI), and the need for domain individuals to be trained to deploy innovative building blocks becomes even more pronounced.
For 2024 there will be four categories that will dominate board room discussions, investor demands, and personnel fear. Unlike prior IT and management trends, what will be witnessed in 2024 will be a complex web of capabilities interconnecting many dimensions. The implementation paths of one-off’s (e.g., SaaS, Gen AI) that are a core focus will be deployed moving forward as interconnected innovations to achieve the greatest growth.