Saturday marked the 20^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that took the lives of almost 3,000 individuals, including 16 of our colleagues and 71 delegates who were attending the inaugural Waters Financial Technology Congress at the top of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. As always, we remember those we lost and those who had to pick up the pieces after that horrible day. You can read our tribute here.

I’m writing this silly column because of those who came before me. I truly thank them. There’s no easy transition here, so let’s just get into it.

Low-code, no-code marketing mania

One year ago, our Reb Natale wrote a feature that delved deep into the low-code/no-code movement that was starting to build on Wall Street. I followed that with a column wondering if this was really a moment, or merely a marketing mirage.

I have to be honest with you—I was getting a “blockchain as savior” stench from the hype surrounding LC/NC…and yes, that’s how I’ll refer to low-code/no-code from here on out just to save my sanity. Quotes about creating an army of “citizen developers” made me scoff for several reasons. First, the financial markets—and the platforms that underpin the industry—are highly regulated. Second, every single CIO/CTO has to fight the shadow IT monster and manage technical debt. And third, trading platforms are highly complex, latency sensitive, and connected downstream to numerous other applications and data platforms, and devastating glitches aren’t exactly unheard of. If I’m a head of tech, I don’t wanna hear nuthin’ about citizen developers.

But maybe I’m missing something. This past week we wrote a story about how IHS Markit is planning to add a drag-and-drop user interface builder for its enterprise data management platform, as it looks to tap into the LC/NC evolution. “The drag-and-drop functionality will make it possible for non-technical users to configure UI screens, user workflows, and data-quality rules themselves, rather than relying on their IT team,” Devendra Bhudia, head of product for EDM, told WatersTechnology.

Also last week, desktop integration platform provider Cosaic held a webinar announcing a no-code desktop platform that allows users to “assemble any type of application into shareable, publishable workspaces” in under an hour. OpenFin, a competitor to Cosaic, has also been looking at the LC/NC landscape. As a believer in the app interop movement, I have a ton of respect for these two companies, so if they’re taking it seriously, so should I.

But this is still a young area for the capital markets. And just the same way that there are legitimate use-cases for blockchain in the capital markets, there’s also a lot of hype. Just the same way that there are inspired uses of AI in the capital markets, there are also instances of glorified robotic process automation disguised as AI. The same will be true of LC/NC.

To help separate the wheat from the chaff, I spoke with Stephen Murphy, CEO of Genesis, a LC/NC platform provider. While Murphy most definitely has a horse in this race, the bona fides for Genesis are impressive. First, they’ve been entrusted to build the Octopus platform, which is bringing together Citi, Bank of America, and others and will combine the collateralized loan obligation and syndicated loan trading efforts of its members into a new multi-bank trading platform. Furthermore, ING, XP Investments, Citi, Bton Financial, and others have gone public with Genesis-led projects. So while Murphy will certainly be one of those vocally pushing this movement forward, they’ve already won over some notable institutions.

Here’s what he had to say on the current state of LC/NC in the industry:

“If a company is saying you can manage data and workflows around that data with their low-code, no-code tooling, I’m ok with that. Where I’m not ok with it is if you start saying this low-code platform does anything and everything and you build applications on it,” Murphy says. “I think you’re going to see more and more low-code, no-code of specific things and use cases, and I think that’s a really good thing. If they say, ‘XYZ company is now a low-code, no-code platform and it’s a complete application development platform,’ then I think they’re not being honest.”

He continues: “There’s a lot of noise. There are two generations of low-code, no-code. The first are BPM tools and then the next generation you can build anything on it. The way that I would look at low-code, no-code is you’re going to see the first generation low-code, no-code that are cross-industry are going to keep fighting against each other. Some of them are fighting on definitions and no-code versus low-code. You’re going to see the industry vertical vendors getting worried and realize this whole world is going to change with buy versus build, and they’re going to start saying it’s low-code, no code, but there will be a lot of noise to it.”

Shadow IT and technical debt will continue to be concerns for senior technologists across the industry. But it’s also clear that there’s a home for LC/NC development on Wall Street, even when it comes to complex trading platforms. Now, to what extent? I haven’t a clue.

Here’s something else I’ll be interested to watch over the coming years: As I incessantly bang on about, after cloud and machine learning, app interoperability is the most important trend that’s affected the capital markets over the last five years. So here’s what I wonder: For how long can these two communities play nice together? Reb’s feature on LC/NC from a year ago notes that by some definitions, LC/NC is “adjacent to, and in some respects, directly opposes” app interop efforts.

Since then, though, there appears to be budding overlap between the two. Interop connects legacy systems with more modern applications. LC/NC, on the other hand, can help connect the apps that don’t easily adhere to the FDC3 set of standards that allow for interoperability, such a non-financial-services-like news service. 

Unsurprisingly, Murphy has more faith in LC/NC underpinning the revolution, and the interop community will have to adjust and evolve as a result.

“I don’t think low-code, no-code is a threat to desktop app interoperability platforms, but I do think it’s going to change the market and some of those platforms might not like that change because they’re not providing true innovation or transformation of legacy technology. That’s my personal view,” he says.

My money is on app interoperability’s staying power. But I’m also changing my tune a bit on LC/NC, as there appears to be a home for a variety of use-cases. Maybe these changes will prove valuable to both constituents. Have some thoughts on how it all shakes out, let me know: anthony.malakian@infopro-digital.com.