How will new technologies change future of finance? Interview with director of Apricot Capital (video)

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies is opening up new opportunities for the financial and investment sectors. As Vachik Gevorgyan, executive director of the investment company Apricot Capital, noted in an interview with NEWS.am Tech, these technologies significantly speed up many processes: if previously they took hours, or even days, now they can be completed in a matter of seconds. In addition, modern technologies offer new opportunities and products that were previously quite difficult to even imagine.

Speed

According to the specialist, in the past, for many transactions related to finance and investments, people had to go to a bank or investment company, fill out documents, and receive paper reports. Now all this is done electronically - quickly, in just a few clicks, without the need to go anywhere and spend a lot of time on it.

“I think that new technologies simplify many processes. For example, to make any transaction in the USA, for example, to purchase Apple shares, you no longer need to fly to the USA and spend money and time on it,” Gevorgyan noted.

Thanks to the development of AI, he said, processes related to data analytics have also accelerated significantly. People would have to spend an incredible amount of time analyzing data about users and their transactions. AI can do this very quickly - and, based on the compiled analytics, help understand which users should be offered which products and when it would be more appropriate to offer them, how to improve and speed up some transactions, and so on.

In addition, according to Gevorgyan, the younger generation today is increasingly using AI in a variety of areas, even when making purchases. And this trend is likely to continue to develop: more and more people will make purchases through virtual assistants, who, after analyzing all available offers and taking into account data on the user’s age, behavior, preferences, will be able to select products for them that best suit their needs .

Decentralized technologies

The development of decentralized technologies and, in particular, blockchain, according to Gevorgyan, also opens up new opportunities in the world of finance.

If a transaction is carried out through a bank, that is, in the “traditional” way, this same bank acts as a single processing center that transfers funds from one user to another and receives and stores all information about this and other transactions. Decentralization in the blockchain involves the transfer of control and decision-making from a centralized entity (a bank or, say, a central bank) to a distributed network. Such a transaction, according to Gevorgyan, cannot be suspended by the operator without compelling reasons, data about it cannot simply be deleted from the system, any information cannot be added retroactively - and all this makes such transactions more transparent and attractive to people.

“Unlike classical finance, the decentralized model is more objective, more impartial, where the data is better verified, and where the information cannot be falsified, changed, and so on,” the specialist noted.

Moreover, blockchain technologies greatly simplify money transfers between countries. If in the case of a traditional transfer, several banks will be involved in the transaction and it will take quite a lot of time, then on crypto platforms on the blockchain such a transaction occurs in a matter of seconds - and without the involvement of intermediaries like banks.

But does all this mean that one day in the future, traditional currencies will simply cease to exist, and the whole world will switch to cryptocurrencies? Vachik Gevorgyan is skeptical about this prospect. According to him, the issue of national currency is a monopoly of the governments and central banks of countries, and for them it is an important lever for ensuring the basic existence of states, which they are unlikely to ever give up.

The full interview can be viewed here: