Press Release Beijing, Daejeon, London, Nice, Paris, Princeton, 23 March 2017
EDHEC-Risk Institute, KAIST, Princeton, and Tsinghua University to host a series of annual rotational conferences on FinTech starting in Princeton on 26 April 2017
EDHEC-Risk Institute, KAIST, Princeton, and Tsinghua University are partnering for the first time and are pleased to announce the launch of a series of rotational conferences on financial technologies. This forum will facilitate discussion among all interested parties (academics, practitioners, and regulators) from around the world.
In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, every aspect of our lives is rapidly changing. What were once perceived as topics of science fiction – including artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things, and quantum computing – are now being deployed in the real world, with a speed and on a scale we have never seen. Thanks to the vast amount of data, increased computing power and newly developed technologies, the tasks that only human beings could do are now beautifully and efficiently conducted by machines. Without question, many industries will face unprecedented fundamental changes – from daily operations to the whole value chain.
The wealth management industry is no exception. For instance, just like a self-driving car, many tasks in the financial industry that have been traditionally conducted only by human beings can be automatically done by machines. This opens up a completely new possibility in the provision of financial services, particularly customised wealth management services, which have traditionally been aimed at institutions and rich individuals. This is the due to the fact that these services are provided in a very labour intensive manner. Given the nature of financial services, the workforce has to be well-trained, and thus the services provided are inevitably expensive. Only institutions and high-net-worth individuals could afford such expensive services, and most of the world’s population cannot get access to professionals. Certainly, this will change.
With the newly introduced technologies, the cost of financial services could decrease significantly, which will ultimately allow every individual to afford customised wealth management services. This change allows the asset management industry to provide services to the long-tail – the general public without a significant amount of financial assets. From the business perspective, this means that the industry will have a completely new yet enormous market – customised wealth management for the not-so-rich.
Importantly, with the rise of defined contribution pension plans around the world, customised wealth management services for the general population is becoming a necessity, one that could only be accomplished with technological innovations.
In response to the imminent changes, EDHEC-Risk Institute, KAIST, Princeton, and Tsinghua University will host a series of rotational conferences on financial technologies, offering a forum to facilitate discussion among all interested parties from around the world, including academics, practitioners, and regulators.
The conference will take place annually, beginning on 26 April 2017 with the Four-University Rotating FinTech Conference: Wealth Management Systems for Individual Investors on the Princeton Campus, jointly organised by EDHEC-Risk Institute and Princeton University’s ORFE department.
Leading experts from the US, Asia, and Europe will be featured at the conference, including Andrew Yao (Turing Award recipient and founder of IIIS FinTech Center at Tsinghua University), John Bogle (Founder of The Vanguard Group, and President of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center), Woo Chang Kim (Associate Professor at KAIST), Lionel Martellini (Director of EDHEC-Risk Institute), John Mashey (Bell Labs/Silicon Valley Computer Scientist/Corporate Executive), and John Mulvey (Professor and founding member of the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University):
- Mass-Customisation of Goal-Based Investment Solutions: The New Frontier in Digital Wealth Management Services
- Goal-Based Investment via Multi-Stage Stochastic Goal Programming for Robo-Advisor Services
- Big Data – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
- Applying Machine Learning Concepts for Asset Allocation and ALM
- FinTech: Drawing Strengths from Computing Theories
- Savings and Investing to Achieve Retirement Goals: An Update Given Current Market Assumptions
- The Rise of Robo-Advisors: A Threat or an Opportunity for the Wealth Management Industry?
The conference will include the participation of official partner SAMSUNG Asset Management.
Contact:
For more information or to get a press pass for the conference, please contact: Maud Gauchon
Tel.: +33 493 187 887 – E-mail: maud.gauchon@edhec-risk.com
To visit our web site: www.edhec-risk.com
About EDHEC-Risk Institute
Founded in 1906, EDHEC Business School offers management education at undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate and executive levels. Holding the AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS accreditations and regularly ranked among Europe’s leading institutions, EDHEC Business School delivers degree courses to over 6,500 students from the world over and trains 10,000 professionals yearly through executive courses and research events. The School’s ‘Research for Business’ policy focuses on issues that correspond to genuine industry and community expectations.
Part of EDHEC Business School and established in 2001, EDHEC-Risk Institute has become the premier academic centre for industry-relevant financial research. In partnership with large financial institutions, its team of close to 50 permanent professors, engineers, and support staff, and 38 research associates and affiliate professors, implements 6 research programmes and 10 research chairs focusing on asset allocation and risk management and has developed an ambitious portfolio of research and
educational initiatives in the domain of investment solutions for institutional and individual investors.
EDHEC-Risk Institute also has highly significant executive education activities for professionals. In partnership with CFA Institute, it has developed advanced seminars based on its research which are available to CFA charterholders and have been taking place since 2008 in New York, Singapore and London.
In 2012, EDHEC-Risk Institute signed two strategic partnership agreements, with the Operations Research and Financial Engineering department of Princeton University to set up a joint research programme in the area of asset-liability management for institutions and individuals, and with Yale School of Management to set up joint certified executive training courses in North America and Europe in the area of risk and investment management.
About KAIST
KAIST, a research university established in 1971, has served as the gateway to advanced science, technology, and innovation for Korea. To meet the growing demand for young, competent global leaders, KAIST has developed itself as a global arena for interdisciplinary education and research opportunities. With 1,112 faculty members working with 11,176 students, KAIST focuses on creating an atmosphere for interdisciplinary communication and collaboration for its academic units in all of its four campuses in Daejeon and Seoul to stimulate the innovative leadership and entrepreneurship
needed to develop technology for the advancement of the world and for sustainable economic growth. KAIST also endeavours to strengthen its network to provide its constituents with collaboration opportunities with prominent partners from academia and industry. KAIST will continue to foster innovation and creativity for the future generation of global leaders; students who are no longer bound by the limits of specific disciplines, departments or the national borders and are dedicated to research excellence for the betterment of all mankind.
The KAIST Center for Wealth Management Technologies (KAIST WMT Center) was founded in 2016, to foster the interdisciplinary research for wealth management technologies. Under the core agenda of “enabling customized wealth management service for everyone”, the center is conducting various researches to provide innovative technologies which can ultimately shift the high cost service structure of wealth management industry into scalable and affordable one. Currently, the center has 11 members from academia, industry, and regulatory agencies. About Princeton University ORFE department and the Bendheim Center for Finance
About PRINCETON University
ORFE is the intersection of five core disciplines: financial mathematics, operations research, optimization, probability theory, and statistics. Research in the Department ranges from the mathematical foundations of these fields to the development of state-of-the-art methodology for solving complex problems that arise in important real-world applications in engineering and the sciences. ORFE students obtain a strong quantitative and interdisciplinary training, and acquire the skills to become leaders in academia and industry.
The Bendheim Center for Finance was established in 1998 to encourage interdisciplinary research in finance, primarily from a quantitative or mathematical perspective. The research activities of the center are directed toward the study of financial markets and asset prices, the financial structure
of firms, banks and other financial intermediaries, and the linkages between financial economics and other fields, such as engineering, operations research, mathematics, computer science, psychology and public policy.
About Tsinghua University
Advancing a tradition of academic excellence, Tsinghua University is a pacesetter for innovation in China. It has become a leading world university in just over 100 years. Tsinghua University excels in its fundamental task of high-level personnel training, and also serves as an indispensable base for China's scientific and technological innovation. It is among the most selective universities in the Asia-Pacific region, and a trusted global partner for researchers and academics.
Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) was established at Tsinghua University in 2010. The Institute aims to become one of the leading research centers on interdisciplinary information sciences in the world, as well as to offer an attractive environment for top quality research and education in computer science and quantum information science in China. Its special undergraduate program, nicknamed by its students as the Yao Class, has become an international brand for excellence in undergraduate computer science education.