I was lucky enough to win tickets to the premiere of The Expendables 3 in London back in 2014, an all-guns–blazing action film starring Stallone, Schwarzenegger and a cast of other Hollywood greats.
To compare Global Custodian’s upcoming documentary to a film that had a $90 million budget may seem like a stretch – as we’ve got far less explosions and stunts – but I can guarantee this is a production you won’t want to miss. And after all, now you’ll be able to say you’ve attended a premiere too.
Custody 2020: A documentary is the culmination of around a year of work from our team, dating all the way back to the publication of the industry surveys on which the presentation is based on. Usually we’d hand out awards to the best performers from this research at our annual awards ceremony but of course, this year had other plans, and a gathering of over 200 people in London is a bit difficult in this environment.
We spent time carefully considering how best to replace this spectacle and after months of deliberation and deduction of ideas like presenting the awards digitally from our living rooms, we decided on making a documentary featuring the winners of our awards.
Custody 2020 is the story of asset servicing with a quick nod to the past, and a major focus on the present and future of the industry. We look at how business models have changed in light of client demands, regulation and the technology evolution – with client input on what they are looking for from their service providers. We ask those same asset management clients what their pain points are and put those queries to the top performers from our latest round of surveys.
We discuss network management and new markets, data and digital, APIs and automation. The three chapters of the documentary will focus on clients demands, challenges and the importance of technology and innovation.
Overall we’ll have more than a dozen guest appearances from across the industry covering major, emerging and frontier markets, ensuring the content is relevant for our entire audience. We’ve got custodians, tech vendors, asset managers, market infrastructures and more.
With this documentary replacing our awards, one thing we wanted to ensure was that this production had a real community feel about it, so during the premiere there will be a live chat function where viewers can discuss, comment and ask questions. We will look to provide answers to those questions through a live panel after the documentary featuring five industry experts who will be discussing the film and any questions the audience might have.
We believe this is an industry first for the securities services world, and we’re incredibly proud to be bringing it to you on 24 September. Despite our in-person awards being cancelled, we took inspiration from your adaption and innovation during the global pandemic and tried to be agile ourselves in evolving our products and delivery.
We hope you can join us on the 24 September – the live viewing will be at 12pm BST with a repeat at 5pm BST (a matinee if you will) if you’re unable to make the first show.
You can sign-up by clicking here or see our events page for more information.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out to me jon.watkins@globalcustodian.com.