Interview: Mosaic Smart Data, UK IT Industry Awards finalist
'Our technology helps some of the world's leading investment banks to optimise their fixed income, currencies and commodities sales and trading performance'
Information technology helps business run more smoothly by making their operations more effective, which in turn lowers costs, improves communication, boosts performance, and results in the production of new products.
The UK IT Industry Awards are the largest and most well-known event in the technology industry calendar. Owned and operated by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and Computing, the awards enjoy a level of professionalism and industry knowledge not seen at other shows.
This year's winners will be announced at a live awards ceremony on Wednesday 9th November in London.
One of the finalists is Mosaic Smart Data, in the running for the Data Science Project of the Year.
We talked to Matthew Hodgson, CEO and Founder, Mosaic Smart Data, to find out why their organisation deserves to win.
A seasoned financial professional, Matthew has over two decades experience in fixed income, electronic markets and data strategy working at Managing Director level for some of the world's leading institutions.
Prior to founding Mosaic, Matthew had roles as Global Head of Rates & Credit eCommerce Platforms and sat on the Market Electronic Trading ExCo at Deutsche Bank, where he was also the architect of the bank's fixed income, commodities and currencies data strategy.
During his time at Deutsche Bank Japan, Matthew led the drive in market share for the Non Yen franchise from 4.4% to 12.5%. This took the franchise from ranking 9th to 1st place, over four years.
Matthew was promoted to run Deutsche's Japan Rates sales team (Yen, Non-Yen, Hedge Fund's & Interbank sales) and sat on Deutsche Bank Japan's Global Markets ExCo. He had responsibility for identifying and hiring talent from all top international universities into Global Markets Japan.
Matthew traded interest rates for 17 years and was the head of Non Yen Rates Trading at both Deutsche Bank & Citigroup in Japan.
Computing: Please provide some background on your company for our readers.
Matthew Hodgson: Mosaic Smart Data is an innovative London-based fintech company, building next generation data analytics tools for capital markets. Our technology helps some of the world's leading investment banks to optimise their fixed income, currencies and commodities sales and trading performance and sets a new standard for the industry.
Mosaic acts as a GPS to navigate the FICC markets by aggregating all transaction data from across the organisation as well as external sources, normalising it and applying advanced AI and machine learning tools to extract actionable insight from it. The net result for the bank is their staff has longer, more meaningful and hyper-personalised conversations with clients that ultimately lead to deeper relationships and more profitable trades.
Since Mosaic's inception in 2014, our client base has grown rapidly and now includes some of the biggest financial institutions across the world - including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America and South Africa. The company has won numerous awards and industry accolades, including the Banking Tech Awards, the FS Tech Awards and the InvestHK UK Fintech Awards, and was named Fintech Company of the Year by City AM.
What makes you different from other technology companies?
Our technology enables some of the biggest banks across the globe to harness their capital markets transaction and market data by providing a single consolidated view of client transaction activity across the organisation and transform insight into actionable intelligence. This allows them to see in real-time what happened, why it happened, and what is likely to happen next.
By leveraging the latest AI and machine learning capabilities, the technology enriches and personalises the analytic insights users receive - just like a platform like Netflix does in the consumer world.
Imagine having the world's best digital quant sitting beside you, guiding you to opportunity and action - this is precisely what Mosaic delivers. At the most basic level, this can immediately transform the productivity of the existing analysis a bank is able to provide. A common complaint among data scientists is that they spend most of their time in data wrangling rather than actual productive analysis. If all transaction data is now accessible by data scientists and quants in a single consistent format, then this challenge is virtually eliminated.
But the benefits of consistent data apply universally across the business, not just to data scientists and quants. If the solution that transforms the data also includes actionable reporting and rich analytics, then the quality and productivity of analysis throughout the FICC business in general also rises - as should profitability.
Following a recent pilot with Mosaic, a tier 1 bank reported a 20% increase in call volumes, 22% increase in call duration, 18% increase in inquiries - and 100% of its users wanted to move to production immediately given the tangible benefits enjoyed.
What is one company achievement in the last 12 months are you most proud of?
We have made great progress in our ground-breaking partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) during the last year. We partnered with the ESA back in 2018 to explore how algorithms developed for use in space could be adapted and deployed in capital markets. Together, we're enabling banks and asset managers to use machine-learning algorithms that were initially designed to monitor instruments aboard deep-space satellites to manage risk better and find previously unforeseen trading signals more efficiently.
Through this collaboration we have an incredible opportunity to apply some of the world's most advanced data analytics models to the problems our clients face in financial markets. Not only that, but we continuously share the results of the project with the ESA to help advance its own analytics development.
What are you working on this year?
This year we will continue to work with our customers to help them improve client service, efficiency, productivity and, ultimately, profitability. The current operating environment is both uncertain and challenging for banks, but becoming data centric and partnering with agile fintechs that leverage technologies such as AI and machine learning holds the key to driving growth and delivering the modern, information-driven trading experience that clients demand.
After all, it's typically during periods of stress where relationships are forged. As a bank, if you're able to guide a client through the fog of confusion, you will likely have a relationship for life - and data-driven insights can assist in facilitating this.
We never lose sight of the fact that we must deliver on this promise for our customers each day - this is our responsibility, and we take it extremely seriously. Because, in reality, the benefits don't just end with our user base. By shifting to a data-centric banking model, the whole ecosystem ultimately benefits - you as an individual salesperson or trader gains through strengthened client relationships, your client makes more successful trades, your team becomes more productive, your company becomes profitable, and the industry as a whole becomes a more modern, transparent and efficient place to do business.
Why are events like the UK IT Industry Awards important to the IT industry?
Events like this celebrate innovation at a time when the industry needs creative technology solutions more than ever before. It's incredibly exciting to see so many new platforms and services gaining traction and widespread adoption, and being recognised at awards ceremonies such as this.
The UK IT Industry Awards will take place on 9th November in London. Click here to view the shortlist and here to book your table.