SEEBLOCKS.eu Interview - Balancing Innovation and Infrastructure in Financial Technology with Jason Ward (Fidelity Investments & FCAT Blockchain & Crypto) at Blockchain Ireland Week

Jason Ward, SVP at Fidelity Investments and Head of FCAT Blockchain & Crypto, shared his insights on the challenges and opportunities in financial innovation, particularly in the context of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Ward leads initiatives that explore new technologies and their potential impact on customers and the broader ecosystem. 

"I lead blockchain and crypto initiatives in the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, where we get to experiment and explore new technologies to understand how they may affect our [...] customers, and certainly [...] how the ecosystem evolves over time."

Challenges in Financial Innovation for Large Corporations

Ward highlighted the complexities large corporations face when balancing innovation with existing infrastructure:

"When I think about how financial innovation is challenging for large corporations, I often think about the fact that there's a lot of underlying infrastructure investment that's already been made. And for people who are trying to determine how to strike the balance between investment in their core infrastructure and innovation, oftentimes they need to consider what would the innovation need to do in order to integrate into their core engines?"
 

He emphasised the importance of prioritisation in innovation efforts:

"For many, it can be building on top of them. For others, it could be complimentary. But oftentimes one of the bigger challenges just understanding where does it stack in the priority queue."

Data Integration and Consistency

Ward stressed the significance of data integration in large organisations:

"I think some of the challenges that large organisations face is having disparate information. And if you have the opportunity to take and integrate different sources of information, whether it be through shared data or platform integration, you have the opportunity to try and eliminate the friction that's involved with having data in different states."

He pointed out the benefits of data consistency:

"So from an opportunity perspective, if you can minimise the differences in the data that you have across your platforms, your processing, or consuming or publishing data, then you're gonna have more consistency. So therefore you'll have better trust in the data that you have."

Navigating Multinational Compliance

Ward discussed the complexities of compliance for multinational corporations:

"If you are a multinational corporation, you don't need to understand just one set of compliance rules, but you'd understand the compliance rules for all the jurisdictions in which you're operating. So oftentimes you need to look and see what is common, what is different, and then build for the common as your core platform and maybe compliment on the edges for the specific jurisdictions where you're operating, where control environments are different."

The Role of Standards in Innovation

Ward emphasised that standards can complement innovation rather than constrain it:

"Standards can be very complimentary towards innovation. Sometimes they might feel constraining because you think you're required to stay within a particular box, but it's not prescriptive on how you comply with those standards in [...] many cases."

He suggested that innovation within standards could lead to ecosystem contributions:

"So if you have the opportunity to innovate within the parameters that you're given and come up with solutions that are beneficial to yourselves and possibly to others, you could also provide [...] contributions to the ecosystem through open source contributions."

Conclusion

Jason Ward's insights highlight the complex interplay between innovation, existing infrastructure, and regulatory compliance in the financial technology sector. His perspectives underscore the importance of strategic prioritisation, data integration, and leveraging standards as a framework for innovation. As the financial industry continues to evolve with blockchain and crypto technologies, Ward's approach of experimenting within established parameters while seeking opportunities for broader ecosystem contributions offers a balanced path forward for large corporations navigating this changing landscape.

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