Interactive
A Critical Ratio That Every CIO Should Be Thinking About
Healthy technology functions achieve the right mix of Thinkers, Doers, and Watchers.
Web3 and the Future of Banking
Web3’s growing role in financial services is poised to shake up business as usual, creating ripple effects in everything from transactions to regulation to recruitment. We sat down with Morgan McKenney from Provenance Blockchain Foundation, Alejandro Valenzuela of Banco Azteca, Kelly Mathieson of Digital Asset, and Himal Makwana of FIS to understand how web3 is propelling the future of banking.
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Web3 Talent
The Talent Dynamic in Emerging Digital Financial Services
As financial services firms prioritize attracting talent, web3 creates new opportunities to make the industry more inclusive. Recognizing that building capabilities and platforms requires diversity of thinking, leaders are broadening their talent search. At the same time, the democratization of finance ushered in by web3 may help firms draw candidates who value mission-based, purpose-led companies.
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Regulation
Protecting and Regulating the Financial Digital Asset
The nascency of a legal framework poses a significant barrier to adopting financial digital assets. Mortgages on blockchain, for example, offer benefits to all parties—but the asset requires legal protection. UCC article 12 broadens the digital asset range to be legally protected, but there’s still work to do.
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Digital Identity
The Intrinsic Link Between Web3 and Native Digital Identity
Digital identity may be every customer’s most important asset, but it’s the weakest link in the blockchain landscape, says Morgan. While credentialing and security solutions are still being built, one thing that’s certain is that each of us will ultimately control our own identity assets. Moving past the experimentation phase, however, will require mainstream adoption of the digital asset ecosystem, along with banks’ leadership in creating solutions.
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Future of Finance
Blockchain and the Evolution of the Digital Financial Factory
Blockchain. NFTs. Crypto. These buzzy words percolating in the public consciousness today will, in a mere decade, describe the new “factory of finance”—how assets are issued, financed, and serviced. As Morgan explains, this shift will address inefficiencies in financial services, enable more real-time settlement, improve asset liquidity, and boost transparency. Get ready for the self-checkout line of finance.
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Stablecoins and CBDC
The Changing Nature of Money
As cryptocurrency transforms finance, very tangible benefits and drawbacks have emerged. With cash offering a sense of privacy, cultural changes will be necessary to go digital. Direct transactions without intermediaries are more convenient and efficient—but remove traceability. Alejandro discusses the evolving state of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and the implications for governments, banks, and consumers.
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Healthcare deal activity grew in every region 
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Central Bank Digital Currency
Embracing Digital Currency while Preserving the Two-Tiered Banking System
Much like a dollar in our wallet, digital currencies must offer security. There’s an opportunity to advance the current structure—while preserving privacy—by improving depositor risk. For government benefit programs, for example, central bank digital currency allows the issuer to add technological programmability. This offers citizens convenience and certainty of receipt while allowing the government to build rules around how funding is used.
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Web3 Use Cases
The Web3 Use Cases Poised to Transform Financial Services
As Web3 accelerates, three use cases will address users’ pain points—and as a result, foster adoption. Free from the constraints of the traditional financial system, stablecoins meet a growing need for efficient settlement. Enabled by blockchain, smart contracts allow users to move, share, or trade money without being beholden to counterparty risk. Lastly, tokenization increases the visibility of rights of ownership, bringing value to real estate deals, among other transactions.
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- Web3 Talent
- Regulation
- Digital Identity
- Future of Finance
- Stablecoins and CBDC
- chart
- Central Bank Digital Currency
- Web3 Use Cases
- test
The Talent Dynamic in Emerging Digital Financial Services
As financial services firms prioritize attracting talent, web3 creates new opportunities to make the industry more inclusive. Recognizing that building capabilities and platforms requires diversity of thinking, leaders are broadening their talent search. At the same time, the democratization of finance ushered in by web3 may help firms draw candidates who value mission-based, purpose-led companies.
Protecting and Regulating the Financial Digital Asset
The nascency of a legal framework poses a significant barrier to adopting financial digital assets. Mortgages on blockchain, for example, offer benefits to all parties—but the asset requires legal protection. UCC article 12 broadens the digital asset range to be legally protected, but there’s still work to do.
The Intrinsic Link Between Web3 and Native Digital Identity
Digital identity may be every customer’s most important asset, but it’s the weakest link in the blockchain landscape, says Morgan. While credentialing and security solutions are still being built, one thing that’s certain is that each of us will ultimately control our own identity assets. Moving past the experimentation phase, however, will require mainstream adoption of the digital asset ecosystem, along with banks’ leadership in creating solutions.
Blockchain and the Evolution of the Digital Financial Factory
Blockchain. NFTs. Crypto. These buzzy words percolating in the public consciousness today will, in a mere decade, describe the new “factory of finance”—how assets are issued, financed, and serviced. As Morgan explains, this shift will address inefficiencies in financial services, enable more real-time settlement, improve asset liquidity, and boost transparency. Get ready for the self-checkout line of finance.
The Changing Nature of Money
As cryptocurrency transforms finance, very tangible benefits and drawbacks have emerged. With cash offering a sense of privacy, cultural changes will be necessary to go digital. Direct transactions without intermediaries are more convenient and efficient—but remove traceability. Alejandro discusses the evolving state of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and the implications for governments, banks, and consumers.
Figure 1
Embracing Digital Currency while Preserving the Two-Tiered Banking System
Much like a dollar in our wallet, digital currencies must offer security. There’s an opportunity to advance the current structure—while preserving privacy—by improving depositor risk. For government benefit programs, for example, central bank digital currency allows the issuer to add technological programmability. This offers citizens convenience and certainty of receipt while allowing the government to build rules around how funding is used.
The Web3 Use Cases Poised to Transform Financial Services
As Web3 accelerates, three use cases will address users’ pain points—and as a result, foster adoption. Free from the constraints of the traditional financial system, stablecoins meet a growing need for efficient settlement. Enabled by blockchain, smart contracts allow users to move, share, or trade money without being beholden to counterparty risk. Lastly, tokenization increases the visibility of rights of ownership, bringing value to real estate deals, among other transactions.
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Thinker/Doer/Watcher (T/D/W) is an analytical framework we’ve developed to help clients understand the composition of their technology workforce and quickly identify areas of improvement. Based on scores of projects across a wide range of industries, the T/D/W framework analyzes the ratio of different types of roles within a technology function, dividing them roughly into Thinkers (who provide strategic framing, vision, and prioritization), Doers (who produce output, and have their “fingers on the keys”), and Watchers (who oversee and facilitate processes and communication).
In our experience, Doers tend to comprise up to 75% of the tech organization in companies with more advanced technology functions. This group includes developers, engineers, testers, and other operational roles. Watchers include business analysts, project managers, and the management team; ideally, Watchers make up less than 15% of the organization, because the shift to modern ways of working has reduced the need for such roles. Thinkers—a group that includes product managers, data scientists, and architects—should make up about 10% of a technology workforce.
While not a perfect instrument or a hard-and-fast rule, T/D/W analysis helps technology leaders understand their often huge, varied, and dispersed workforces, by categorizing them in smaller, more manageable groups. This can help pressure-test levels of overhead, bureaucracy, and skill-sets in the organization.
Authors
Will Poindexter
Partner, Denver
Brittany Matthews
Partner, Chicago
Darren Johnson
Partner, New York
First published in agosto 2021