The shift to automation of processes and services

Eric Aboaf, Vice Chairman and CFO, State Street

Eric Aboaf, Vice Chairman and CFO, State Street

With more than three decades of experience in the industry, Eric Aboaf has set his own path in the financial industry influencing his co-workers and upcoming professionals. He has proved his expertise in finance and strategy functions as well as having orchestrated budget processes and provided financial and strategic analyses to support organizations. Aboaf also has more than 10 years of business strategy consulting experience spanning a number of industries, including banking, insurance, and asset management, as well as manufacturing, retailing, and consumer products. Currently, Aboaf holds the position of Vice Chairman and CFO at State Street.

Can you please tell our readers about your current roles and responsibilities in the organization?

I have been working at State Street for six years and hold two roles. One is as a Chief Financial Officer responsible for treasury, controllership, tax planning analysis, business unit financial support, and investor relations. I also lead the company’s merger and acquisition (M&A) and co-head strategy activities. This involves driving finance, strategy, and M&A from day-to-day operations to looking forward and out on the horizon. The second group of activities I have is centered around running our markets and financing businesses. We are one of the largest foreign exchange dealers for asset managers around the globe and have a large securities financing business due to the activities we do on the custody side. So I lead those businesses too.

Can you share your thoughts on the challenges faced by Fintech companies due to the shift towards automating processes and services?

I think the development of FinTech in financial services began primarily around consumers and facilitating consumer payments. This has resulted in bank branches being closed as they are being replaced by better tech interfaces. The disruptions caused by external players in the industry are making a dramatic impact on current players. And these current players who are embracing new tools and technologies for their consumer customers are more successful. It should also be noted that FinTech is evolving towards corporates, and institutions, all of whom demand the same kind of transformation they see with their consumer relationships. This transformation across financial services is driving a new FinTech stack for wealth managers, corporate banks, and institutionally oriented banks. Various new technologies are supplementing the infrastructure underneath legacy platforms, resulting in a different type of offering.

" Don't think of your industry as different from other industries. If you see the world transforming around you, then you have to lean into it, not out "

In the last five years, how have modern advances drastically changed the way people engage with their finances?

I think there are two broad ways evolution has happened: externally and internally. On the external side, how the clients interact with us has dramatically changed. The interaction through phone on their personal financial management has cascaded into commercial interactions with us. This has encouraged us to change the client interface, which has become more elaborate and technologically modern. The use of data analytics, AI technology, and other observational methods helps clients understand what's happening in the economy, and markets on a data-by-day basis. For example, our Price Stats tool provided by us measures inflation in more than twenty different countries on a daily basis. We also created a set of tools for our clients that can look into all the custodial accounts on an anonymized basis and look for patterns around movements from different industry sectors, ownership levels, foreign exchange positions, and the momentum that is shifting and changing.

If we pivot to the finance side or internally, how we run finance has dramatically changed too. The world of finance has become all about data, as we manage the inflow of data from hundreds of platforms to our financial systems, and make sure the data moves smoothly and accurately across those platforms. We have a whole team that works on data streams, data mapping and data transfers from upstream systems into our core finance platforms. We are also able to do analysis around clients or products or geographies much more quickly than before and have been able to enrich data within finance in ways that were not possible previously. This enriched data set of analytics and insights is what differentiates finance teams over time, allowing businesses to make better, more informed decisions and identify new opportunities.

What would be your piece of advice to your fellow peers?

My first piece of advice would be: don't think of your industry as different from other industries. If you see the world transforming around you, then you have to lean into it, not out. And my second piece of advice would be that as finance officers or CFOs, we can do more than ever before. The more we create data sets and enrich data sets, analytics, and insights, the more valuable we can be as finance professionals for our businesses and our business partners.