We see decentralisation of technology as a key theme over the coming years, delivered through several separate but related mechanisms. Decentralisation is a progression of factors we have seen in recent years: the adoption of AI and algorithmic trading, blockchain and related technologies such as smart contracts; and a move from monolithic to ecosystem platforms. Decentralisation becomes attractive to the commodity industry, primarily as a technology enabler, and in turn as a cost and risk reducer.  

From a technology perspective, we see a greater push towards more open standards and interfaces (APIs), likely standardising on REST APIs, with GraphQL waiting in the wings. As transactional volumes increase, the need to have low overhead, low latency APIs becomes paramount. 

Vendors not already providing cloud-native solutions will need to get on board with distributed technologies such as containerisation of deployed apps through technologies like Docker, built on orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes. Containerisation allows for rapid “right-scaling“ of resources to support peaks and troughs of data throughput and processing, rather than the very costly approach of provisioning the biggest servers available, all running 24/7.