- Virtual and augmented reality are on the rise on Wall Street.
- VR and AR technologies could help traders better manager their screen space.
- A managing director at Accenture broke down how Wall Street could benefit from VR.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Traders may soon swap big, burdensome screen rigs for something decidedly more streamlined: virtual reality.
Michael Cheek, a managing director in capital markets at Accenture, told Insider that virtual and augmented reality could assist traders in their ongoing battle for real estate on their screens.
“With the information that needs to be consumed, many screens are seen on the trading floor,” Cheek said. “With technologies like augmented reality, it’s very easy to be able to think how you could have almost unlimited screen real estate with some very, very simple technologies.”
Cheek made the remarks while speaking at Insider’s “Future of Work on Wall Street” webinar on June 24. He was joined by executives from Deutsche Bank and AllianceBernstein.
VR’s ability to give traders unlimited digital space to display data and information isn’t confined to the trading floor, Cheek said. VR headsets can be used at home.
Such innovations could be crucial in enabling traders to take advantage of hybrid or rotational work models.
“It is not inconceivable with other technologies like virtual reality where someone who has a flexible work-from-home approach could in fact see a very similar setup that an onsite trader might see through their augmented reality setup,” he explained.
VR and AR could impact dealmaking, too
Investment bankers can also find applications for virtual and augmented reality.
Cheek said embracing virtual deal rooms that securely contain confidential documents could alleviate the cumbersome nature of having to visit physically-secured areas.
“Historically, it’s been very difficult to read documentation, for example, but with the high-resolution technologies that are emerging now from some of the players, it’s very conceivable that you don’t need to have a physical deal room,” he said.
Insider has been following Wall Street’s growing adoption of virtual and augmented reality for several years.
Online brokerages like TD Ameritrade, which was acquired by Charles Schwab last year, have dabbled with the tech. In 2019, Vijay Sankaran, then-chief technology officer at TD Ameritrade, explained how the brokerage constructed a virtual roller coaster to depict ebbs and flows in the markets to customers.
Cheek said VR has a role to play in employee education. Retail banks have also begun to adopt virtual reality for branch training.
And increased application of the tech seems more likely.
The pandemic may “absolutely be the catalyst” that rockets Wall Street’s adoption of VR forward, Cheek said.
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