BACKGROUND

Innovations in Finance and harnessing of Technology have resulted in making the term Fintech a portmanteau word. In the evolution of the BFSI sector Fintech has assumed a pivotal role; but it also had an impact on traditional order. The rise of AI and Machine learning has enhanced many aspects of investment models and technologies, at the same time it has disrupted some other.

Applications of Alternative Data in Fintech are growing at a great pace; the question is how to discover new sources of alpha and create strategies and signals. Here the challenge is to discover hidden coupling of multiple data sources. Text analysis, Natural Language Processing and analysis of News, Micro blogs, investor sentiment are well established. Bringing all these advances together new applications in trading, fund management and risk control have continued to emerge.

Today Fintech has influenced all aspects of the finance industry – banking and capital markets, asset and wealth management, insurance, and funds transfer and payments.

There are four main themes for this two-day online event:

Theme 1: SRI, SCR and ESG

Theme 2: Systematic Trading of Derivatives and Index Futures

Theme 3: Quantum computing in finance

Theme 4: Alternative Data

EVENT TIME

This event is mainly focused on participants from SE-Asia and India. Hence, the event time is set so that participants from India and China may attend in the afternoon 14:00-18:00 IST on both days.

Attend this event and earn GARP/CPD credit hours.

UNICOM has registered this program with GARP for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits. Attending this program qualifies for 14 GARP CPD credit hours. If you are a Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM®), or Energy Risk Professional (ERP®), please record this activity in your Credit Tracker.

Discounted attendance offer:
If you are a GARP Alumni, that is, an ERP or FRM certificate holder then avail yourself a 20% discount offer for the event registration fee. To know more about the offer contact us [email: finteam@unicom.co.uk]

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    Call for Participation

    We are inviting speakers – thought leaders, subject experts and start up entrepreneurs – to share their knowledge and enthusiasm about their work and their vision in the field of AI, Machine Learning, Sentiment Analysis.

    Please complete the speaker’s response form and submit a proposal to present at this event.

    Code of Conduct & Diversity

    UNICOM’s Code of Conduct & Views on Diversity

    We at UNICOM strive to be a leading provider of knowledge to the business community and to engage the global business community as a specialised provider of knowledge. We strive to do this maintaining a culture of co-operation, commitment and trust. We want every UNICOM conference and training day to be a safe and productive environment for everyone – a place to share research and innovation and to build professional networks. To that end, we will enforce a code of conduct throughout all our events. We expect cooperation from all participants to help ensure a safe environment for everybody.

    Our approach is that our events are dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity or religion. We do not tolerate intimidation, stalking, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of sessions or events, and unwelcome physical contact or sexual attention. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks, workshops, Twitter and other online media. Event participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the event without a refund at the discretion of the conference organisers. Please bring your concerns to the immediate attention of the event staff.

    Diversity: In our endeavour to be the provider of knowledge to the business community, we understand that this depends on hearing from and listening to a variety of perspectives that come from people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, sexual orientation, and military service. We welcome diverse speakers for all our events, we do not always fully achieve this goal, but it is an ongoing process.

    Read more…

    Programme

    Day 1 (6 April)
    Day 2 (7 April)

    [14:00 IST]
    INTRODUCTION
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    Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    THEME: ALTERNATIVE DATA

    [14:10 IST]
    MACHINE LEARNING & ALTERNATIVE DATA FOR INFLATION FORECASTING
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    Alexander Denev, CEO, Turnleaf Analytics

    Alexander Denev, CEO, Turnleaf Analytics

    Forecasting of macroeconomic quantities has been a traditional field where for decades well-established methods and data have been employed. With the advent of Alternative Data and the recent Machine Learning revolution new methods have come to the fore. This talk will elucidate how novel approaches can disrupt this field and bring insights in what is one of the hottest topics on the market – inflation.

    [14:44 IST]
    how to convert data (including alternative data) to “features” (or “predictors”) useful for financial machine learning.
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    Dr. Ernie Chan, Founder, PredictNow.Ai Inc, and Akshay Nautiyal, Head Of Data Science, PredictNow.Ai Inc

    Dr. Ernie Chan, Founder, PredictNow.Ai Inc, and Akshay Nautiyal, Head Of Data Science, PredictNow.Ai Inc

    [15:23 IST]
    COMFORT BREAK

    [15:33 IST]
    Spatial Sustainable Finance
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    Peter Schwendner, Professor, Head Of Institute Of Wealth And Asset Management

    Peter Schwendner, Professor, Head Of Institute Of Wealth And Asset Management

    Biodiversity loss and water scarcity are occurring at an unprecedented pace. Environmental degradation caused by economic activity induces long-lasting consequences affecting global health, food security and quality, poverty, migration and armed conflicts.

    [15:47 IST]
    The Knowledge stack – How to plan your learning for a career in Fintech (Big Data, AI, ML)
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    Joel Pannikot, Asia Pacific head of CMT Association

    Joel Pannikot, Asia Pacific head of CMT Association

    Most people introduced to “fintech” careers seem to overweight the “tech” and underweight the “fin” components of this portmanteau. Especially in India, this skews career opportunities towards back-office or support roles rather than decision-making roles that own the fintech IP being created. This session will help participants understand the landscape of technology, data and first principles of the world of strategic and investment decision technology. The aim is to help young and aspiring professionals plan their learning journey better.

    [16:05 IST]
    Observing daily inflation by POS data and other alternative data sets in Japan
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    Masashi Tsujinaka, Ceo, Nowcast

    Masashi Tsujinaka, Ceo, Nowcast

    Globally, we face strong inflation momentum

    Official CPI, inflation indicator is calculated based on survey or field research. That is not timely and accurate.

    We created the method of observing daily inflation by POS data in Japan. The data can be divided not only by items but also by company (manufacturer).

    [16:25 IST]
    PANEL 1: ALTERNATIVE DATA
    – Read More

    Moderator:

    • Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    Panellist:

    • Alexander Denev, CEO, Turnleaf Analytics
    • Akshay Nautiyal, Head Of Data Science, PredictNow.Ai Inc
    • Peter Schwendner, Professor, Head Of Institute Of Wealth And Asset Management
    • Joel Pannikot, Asia Pacific head of CMT Association
    • Masashi Tsujinaka, Ceo, Nowcast

    [17:25 IST]
    ICE BREAKING SESSION INTRODUCING SPONSORS

    THEME: QUANTUM COMPUTING IN FINANCE

    [17:36 IST]
    INTRODUCING: “INSTANTANEOUS TRADE”
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    Frederik Kerling, Head of Fintech, Atos

    Frederik Kerling, Head of Fintech, Atos

    We are at an interesting crossroads for the field of algorithmic trade. In the past few decades, the field has pushed the limits of computational and networking capacity. As a few milliseconds, or even micro-seconds made a difference a veritable arms-race has commenced that shapes the current high frequency trading landscape. Though we’ve seen an incline in the speed of technologies that enable this, the statistical rules of the game have remained the same. But as any trader will know, there is more than just information, there is also correlation in trade. And whereas information is restricted by the speed of light, random correlation is not. In this talk I’ll introduce you to the quantum network and give an example on how the seemingly random correlations allow you to create a win strategy that is better than without instantaneous correlation. Quantum changes how we experience statistics

    [18:02 IST]
    TOWARDS QUANTUM COMPUTING APPLICATIONS FOR TAX-AWARE PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION
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    Elijah Depalma, Research Analyst Quantitative Innovation, Schwab Asset Management

    Elijah Depalma, Research Analyst Quantitative Innovation, Schwab Asset Management

    • Technical overview and fundamental challenges of tax-aware portfolio optimization
    • Overview of quantum computing developments for portfolio management
    • Exploration of research interests related to quantum computing applications for tax-aware portfolio optimization

    [18:27 IST]
    PANEL 2: QUANTUM COMPUTING IN FINANCE
    – Read More

    Moderator:

    • Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    Panellist:

    • Frederik Kerling, Head of Fintech, Atos
    • Elijah Depalma, Research Analyst Quantitative Innovation, Schwab Asset Management

    [13:55 IST]
    INTRODUCTION
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    Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    THEME: SRI, SCR AND ESG

    [14:10 IST]
    THE ENDURING PRICE IMPACT OF ESG CONTROVERSIES
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    Richard Peterson, Ceo, Marketpsych

    Richard Peterson, CEO, Marketpsych

    While ESG principles are projected to direct half of all investments by 2025, corporate ESG ratings and data sets tend to be unreliable, subjective, and slow-to-update.  In this talk we describe how fast-moving ESG data, especially negative media about controversies in the workplace and among management teams, produce useful investment screening tools. Predictive models built on such data can drive both greater social good and higher investment returns.

    [14:35 IST]
    Contemporaneous ESG Signals through Company News and Earnings Calls
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    Christopher Kantos, Managing Director, EMEA, Alexandria Technology

    Christopher Kantos, Managing Director, EMEA, Alexandria Technology

    Using NLP to scan large amounts of datasets such as institutional newswires and company earnings calls, we can capture ESG events faster, for a more dynamic view of a company’s trending involvement in all three of the E/S/G pillars. Pairing these datasets with traditional ESG research can give a full contemporaneous insight for investors.

    [14:53 IST]
    ESG and Intangibles
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    Dr. G. Kevin Spellman, Senior Advisor to Institutional Shareholder Services | Senior Lecturer and David O. Nicholas Director of Investment Management at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Adjunct Professor at IE Business School

    Dr. G. Kevin Spellman, Senior Advisor to Institutional Shareholder Services | Senior Lecturer and David O. Nicholas Director of Investment Management at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Adjunct Professor at IE Business School

    Intangibles, such as what is created through R&D and promotions, are a significant part of assets that are not recorded on the balance sheet. However, the matter. They are normally positively correlated with returns and ESG in most sectors, with some surprising exceptions such as in health care where more investments in intangibles is associated with worse performance. Also, it matters whether intangibles are internally created or bought, with the former creating more value.

    [15:18 IST]
    PANEL 3: THEME: SRI, SCR AND ESG
    – Read More

    Moderator:

    • Alec McCutcheon, Director, UNICOM Seminars Ltd

    Panellist:

    • Richard Peterson, CEO, Marketpsych
    • Dr. G. Kevin Spellman, Senior Advisor to Institutional Shareholder Services | Senior Lecturer and David O. Nicholas Director of Investment Management at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Adjunct Professor at IE Business School
    • Christopher Kantos, Managing Director, EMEA, Alexandria Technology

    [15:59 IST]
    PRESENTATION BY SPONSORS

    THEME: SYSTEMATIC TRADING OF DERIVATIVES AND INDEX FUTURES

    [16:05 IST]
    BLACKJACK, OPTIONS AND THE S&P 500: THE INTERSECTION OF GAMBLING AND INVESTING
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    Blair Hull, Founder And Chairman, Hull Tactical

    Blair Hull, Founder And Chairman, Hull Tactical

    Applying what has been called a disruptive innovation, Mr. Hull beat the casinos counting cards in blackjack in the 1970s. He parlayed this success into the securities business, building a flagship global options market firm acquired by Goldman Sachs in 1999. Today Mr. Hull applies AI, ML, and the latest academic findings to guide investment decisions and alpha creation in futures and options trading at Hull Tactical.

    [16:31 IST]
    Daily Futures Trading Strategies for different Indices
    Read More
    Prof Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    Prof Gautam Mitra, CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    The problem setting

    • Choice of Asset Classes (Futures)
    • Asset Allocation Model
    • Strategy flow
    • Results, critique and enhancements of the strategy
    • Where we are heading (Research and Business)

    [17:10 IST]
    Q&A SESSION

    [17:20 IST]
    VALEDICTORY SESSION

    Speakers

    Christopher Kantos

    Managing Director, EMEA, Alexandria Technology

    Dr. G. Kevin Spellman

    Senior Advisor to Institutional Shareholder Services | Senior Lecturer and David O. Nicholas Director of Investment Management at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Adjunct Professor at IE Business School

    Akshay Nautiyal

    Head Of Data Science, PredictNow.Ai Inc

    Blair Hull

    Founder And Chairman, HULL TACTICAL

    Joel Pannikot

    Head: Asia-Pacific at CMT Association, Inc

    Frederik Kerling

    Head of Fintech, Atos

    Elijah DePalma

    Research Analyst Quantitative Innovation, Schwab Asset Management

    Ernie Chan

    Founder, PredictNow.Ai Inc
    Masashi Tsujinaka

    Masashi Tsujinaka

    CEO, Nowcast Inc.

    Alexander Denev

    CEO, Turnleaf Analytics
    PETER SCHWENDNER

    Peter Schwendner

    Professor, Head of Institute of Wealth and Asset Management, Zurich University of Applied Sciences
    Richard Peterson

    Richard Peterson

    CEO, MarketPsych
    Gautam Mitra

    Gautam Mitra

    CEO, OptiRisk / UNICOM

    Sponsor

    Knowledge Partner

    Media Partners

    Past Sponsors and Partners

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