Digital transformation is imperative! Wang Hongtao, Guojin Securities： Integrating business and empowering platform to build a first-class brokerage technology organization.

Editor’s Note: Report to the 20th CPC National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to speed up the development of the digital economy, promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and build a digital industrial cluster with international competitiveness. The digital economy has become a new kinetic energy for China’s economic growth. Promoting the digital transformation of industrial institutions in an all-round way is not only an internal engine to help the high-quality development of the securities industry, but also an important measure to better serve the real economy and meet the needs of the people.

In recent years, after continuously increasing investment in information technology, the digital transformation of the securities industry has achieved phased results. In this column of "Blueprints for Digital Transformation", senior executives and chief information officers (CIOs) of the securities industry will share their experiences in digital transformation and future planning.

At present, digital transformation has become an effective booster for securities firms to become bigger and stronger, serve the real economy and manage residents’ wealth, and is a common strategic choice for the securities industry. Recently, Wang Hongtao, chief information officer of Guojin Securities, accepted an exclusive interview with China, a reporter from Securities Times, and shared the experience and thinking of Guojin Securities in promoting digital transformation for many years.

Wang Hongtao introduced that the digital transformation of securities firms generally faces many challenges, such as diversified customer needs, fierce competition in the industry, stricter and more normalized supervision, insufficient integration of business and technology, system fragmentation, data islands and so on. Guojin Securities has made great efforts in digital transformation from five aspects: formulating a unified science and technology strategy, increasing investment in science and technology, establishing an agile and efficient organization, building enterprise-level China-Taiwan capabilities, and building a safe and controllable system. The goal of digital transformation of Guojin is to "integrate business and empower the platform" and build a first-class brokerage science and technology organization.

Digital transformation faces both internal and external challenges.

Wang Hongtao believes that the digital transformation of securities firms is faced with dual challenges of external environment and internal problems. The external environment challenges include diversified customer demand, fierce industry competition, stricter and more normal supervision, etc. The internal problems include insufficient integration of business and technology, system separation, data islands and so on.

"Taking the lack of integration of business and technology as an example, industry IT generally lacks the value analysis of business requirements, and fails to fully evaluate the economic value and comprehensive cost of requirements, resulting in redundant construction or excessive construction in some areas and inefficient resource allocation." Wang Hongtao said.

In Wang Hongtao’s view, "digitalization" and "science and technology" will become the key measures to meet challenges and solve problems.

First, digital enhances the customer experience. For individual customers, provide multi-channel, all-round and personalized comprehensive financial services based on the whole life cycle of customers; For institutional and corporate customers, integrate cross-departmental products and services, provide one-stop digital transactions and services, meet customers’ diversified needs, and enhance customer experience.

The second is the development of technology integration business. Through big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain and other technologies, we will build platform capabilities and empower business development, such as building customer portraits and thousands of people’s recommendation capabilities for wealth business, creating an integrated digital service platform for institutional business, and using intelligent technologies to improve investment bank customer service capabilities and operational efficiency.

Third, data improves operational efficiency. Through data governance and data center platform construction, we will break through data barriers, provide company-level data service capabilities, help operations reduce costs and improve efficiency, and realize data-driven business analysis and decision-making; At the same time, use technology and big data to improve the efficiency of risk and compliance management.

Five measures to make digital transformation

According to Wang Hongtao, in recent years, Guojin Securities has made continuous efforts in digital transformation, which is embodied in five aspects: formulating a unified technology strategy, increasing investment in technology, establishing an agile and efficient organization, building enterprise-level middle-office capabilities, and building a safe and controllable system.

First, formulate a unified science and technology strategy.According to Wang Hongtao, in order to support and integrate the company’s business development in the new decade, Guojin Securities has carried out the "New Five-Year Strategic Development Plan for Science and Technology", and will release the new five-year top-level design of Guojin Securities this year to promote the company’s digital construction.

Second, continuous investment in science and technology, capital investment and staffing in the forefront of the industry.According to the statistics of China Securities Association, in 2021, Guojin Securities invested 477 million yuan in IT, accounting for the ninth in the industry, with a compound growth rate of over 30% in the past three years. By the end of 2021, Guojin Securities had more than 400 formal IT employees, with a compound growth rate of over 20% in the past three years.

Third, establish an agile and efficient organization.According to reports, in order to better promote digital transformation, Guojin Securities set up a data operation management department in the Information Technology Department in 2020, focusing on company-level data governance, data services and data center construction; In 2022, the R&D Efficiency Department was established in the Information Technology Department, which was responsible for establishing agile and DevOps digital mechanisms, realizing agile development and continuous delivery, and significantly improving the efficiency of IT R&D..

Fourth, build enterprise-level middle-level capabilities.Specifically, it includes starting the construction of data center, consolidating data base and providing standardized and unified data services; Strengthen the technical middle-station capability, and use artificial intelligence technologies such as RPA, NLP and machine learning to significantly improve operational efficiency. Through data access and technology sharing, we can empower business development and reduce the operating costs in the middle and back office of the business.

Fifth, build a safe and controllable system.First, promote the innovation of information technology application and improve the independent and controllable level of core systems, key technologies and infrastructure; The second is to strengthen network security management and control, establish an all-round information system security management mechanism, regularly carry out security attack and defense confrontation, and improve the overall security operation level.

The achievements of digital transformation blossom at many points.

From the product side, the achievements of digital transformation of Guojin Securities are gradually reflected in the company’s products, providing professional and comprehensive solutions around the customer’s life cycle.

Especially since the beginning of this year, Guojin Securities has upgraded the commission Jinbao APP around the function of thousands of people, and at the same time launched the index strategy product "Talking about Fingers" APP and the institutional financial platform "Guojin Securities Fund Connect". Specifically, there are the following aspects:

(1) In terms of trading software, in 2020, Guojin commissioned Jinbao APP to launch smart investment services, opening a new era of smart investment, and investors can obtain investment opportunity reminders, trading operation reminders and other services based on market big data. In 2022, the commission Jinbao APP transformed the traditional business model based on big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies, and reshaped the customer journey through comprehensive labeling of customers, products and employees, achieving precise marketing and services for thousands of people. The customer scale was compared with 2014. It has increased by nearly 10 times.

(2) In 2022, Guojin Securities launched an innovative product "Talk Between the Fingers" APP with the index and community as the core, which provides functions such as strategic index information, adjustment of call setting, convenient order trading, customized creation of index, etc. Users can make convenient call trading and flexible adjustment operation based on the market-leading Guojin stock index strategy matrix.

(3) Focusing on the needs of institutional customers, Guojin Securities Fund Link, an institutional financial platform, was launched in 2022, covering innovative functions such as electronic account opening transaction, rapid conversion and real-time liquidation, which greatly improved the efficiency of investment transactions.

(4) In terms of data center, Guojin Securities also launched Guojin Data Port 1.0 in 2022, integrating the comprehensive data governance framework and the technical characteristics of data warehouse, and establishing a data center pedestal under a unified technical framework.

Looking ahead, Wang Hongtao said that Guojin Securities will continue to carry out digital transformation around "vision", "scenario", "capability" and "guarantee".

Specifically, Guojin Securities will define the vision and goal of digital transformation based on science and technology planning, and implement relevant digital measures; Support and integrate "business scenarios" to create digital applications and tools; Precipitate the company-level "platformization" ability, and build a data, technology and business support system; Establish the cornerstone of talents and culture, the bottom line of information security and stable operation, and the "guarantee" of infrastructure base to consolidate digital infrastructure.

The goal of digital transformation is "integrating business and empowering platform"

According to Wang Hongtao, the goal of digital transformation of Guojin Securities is to "integrate business and empower the platform" and build a first-class brokerage science and technology organization.

First of all, in terms of business integration, digital transformation needs to be "customer-centered and business-oriented", keep up with business needs, support business development, deepen the integration of technology and business, and strive for technology to create maximum business value.

Secondly, in terms of platform empowerment, we should precipitate business capabilities, technical tools and data assets to build the company’s platform capabilities, including business platform, technology platform and data platform, so as to avoid the chimney-like business capabilities, organizations, systems and data construction, realize the standardization and sharing of capabilities, improve enterprise operating efficiency and reduce operating costs.

Finally, in building a first-class science and technology organization of securities firms, we should improve the organizational learning ability and build a learning organization by improving the training system, strengthening internal sharing, introducing external wisdom, cultivating key positions, and creating a scientific and technological cultural atmosphere. At the same time, through the certification systems such as CMMI3, ISO27000, ISO20000, ITIL and TMMI, IT organizations and service management can meet the development requirements of standardization, process and standardization.