Asset managers: digitize or die? (part 1)

According to PwC, the asset management industry globally will be managing $145trillion by 2025 as governments worldwide offer tax incentives and continue to encourage their citizens to take responsibility for their pension arrangements rather than rely on the state. Subsequently, the fund management industry is shaping up to expand even further. Looking back in history, the managing of investments in a fund is reported to have been started in 1774 in Holland by Abraham van Ketwich, who set up a fund called ‘Eendragt Maakt Magt’ (‘unity makes strength’). Possibly, the real innovation was not that it merely offered investors a means to have their capital managed in a diversified manner, but also enabled smaller investors as well as the rich to invest. In very simplistic terms, there are nowadays two types of collective investment schemes, aka funds:

·      Open

The size of the fund can expand or contract depending how much money is invested (ignoring the performance of the underling inves…