Mark Notten is the CEO and co-founder of Tier1CRM.

How should the new year be known?

It should be known as “The Year of Firm-wide Collaborative Tools.”

Until now, trading and communication tools have been segregated across different areas of financial institutions, making accessibility to data and information company-wide limited. A consistent, efficient and company-wide flow of information is essential to not only maintaining but also growing your business.

Over the next 12 months, managers will be putting a heavy focus on implementing a firm-wide platform that provides seamless collaboration and communication capabilities across the global banking and markets user base.

Will fintech investment rise, plateau, or trail off in the coming year?

As stated earlier, collaboration and a steady flow of information are as important as ever in the growing competitive landscape. Relationship building between buy- and sell-side institutions with fintech vendors has never been more prevalent, and venture capitalists, bulge bracket banks and lenders have jumped on-board the fintech bandwagon. The fintech sector set a record this year, surpassing $41 billion in global investment by the end of June – $2 billion more than the total that was raised in 2017. We also saw a couple of $1 billion investments this past year. Total fintech investment has been growing year-over-year, and it’s a safe bet that we’ll set another record in 2019.

What will be the skill sets most in demand in the next 12 months?

For technology vendors, the key will be openness and nimbleness across their respective product suite. Service providers must enable additional plug-ins and be capable of supporting third-party data integration and add-ons to offer a best-of-breed solution from an ecosystem of innovation partners. These factors will be pivotal in allowing clients to employ add-ons such as predictive analytics, data sciences, and other specialized databases.