Perspective from Kirsten Wegner, IIA CEO

In a recent webinar hosted by the ETF BILD Project, I had the privilege of joining the World Federation of Exchanges’ CEO Nandini Sukumar to share observations on technology and other shifts influencing investment and trading today. A few of our main takeaways included:

Markets Functioning as Intended, Despite Geopolitical Uncertainty

Despite geopolitical uncertainty and shifting tariffs, the markets continue to function as intended. Exchanges provide a valuable source of access for price discovery for our markets and exchanges offering reliable price discovery mechanisms. In addition, investment vehicles tied to indexes continue to offer investors, large and small, a unit of measurement and precision, in a transparent fashion from a neutral third party, in assessing real time market conditions to make more informed investment decisions. As retail investor participation continues to surge post-pandemic, with more individuals shifting from a savings to an investing mindset, indexes and index-based products like ETFs are valuable tools for everyday investors. These investment tools have proven beneficial in driving down costs and helping individuals build wealth by increasing savings. As geopolitical uncertainty continues, it is vital that investors have confidence in the markets functioning as intended, and have knowledge of tools available, to stay in the markets with a long-term investing perspective.

Education a Priority in 2025

With the unprecedented number of global elections last year, there’s a foreseeable amount of turnover with policy makers and experts, and organizations like the IIA and WFE can play a valuable role as educational resources to the broader public, and policy makers, on market structure, the value of data, and our roles in the broader financial ecosystem. As the year starts fresh, it is a great opportunity to help define who we are, the benefits we offer to end users, and to be available to answer any questions and fill in any knowledge gaps. This is an exciting time to be an educational resource to the public, and tell our industry stories, and the value we add to the broader financial ecosystem.

AI Innovation and Importance of Data Quality

The public fascination with AI continues, although pattern recognition and other types of AI have already been used in the financial services context for several decades. AI has the opportunity to deliver efficiencies, to be a tool for humans to streamline administrative tasks and regtech functions, as well as to help safeguard against risk and cyber breach, and detect abnormal patterns, be it at an exchange or other venue. We expect policy makers to continue to gather information from the public and industry on how AI is being used, in different contexts. We are likely to see more “Chief AI Officers” at firms in the years ahead, and job growth in areas where AI can be used as a tool for humans to make processes more efficient.

Another key area of interest is the value of data, as the “raw material” of AI systems. After all, the effectiveness of any AI system is only as good as the quality of its data input. In the coming years, we can see demand for high-quality data sets. 

For more insight on some of the key trends shaping the future of financial markets, a full replay of the webinar, Delivering Investment and Trading Strategies Through ETPs, can be viewed on ETF BILD Project’s website.