Hype cycles, graveyards and the reporters who watched them

Transaction banking and trade has experienced some seismic shifts over recent years. Through rapid geopolitical and technological upheavals, the media has played a crucial, if evolving, role. Indeed, its role in explaining, contextualising, and analysing these shifts is arguably more critical now than ever.

On location at the ITFA Annual Conference in Split, Croatia, Carter Hoffman, Deputy Editor at TTP, headed a discussion with fellow TTP Studios hosts Joy Macknight, Transaction Banking and Payments Editor at TTP, and Clarissa Dann, Co-host, TTP Studios, to explore how media and media consumption have evolved, the impact of technology, and the importance of independent publications like TTP in the trade media ecosystem.

The rapid lifecycle of new technology

Reflecting on their shared decades of experience in financial services journalism, all three could not help but marvel at the pace of change of technology. Macknight recalls how the barrier to entry for innovation dropped dramatically with the advent of new technologies. “I remember going to a briefing in Goldman Sachs,” she recalls, “who talked about how the cost of, due to cloud technology, but then also open-source technology, the cost of setting up a new startup was reduced by 90%”.

While this precipitated an explosion in the fintech world, she also remembers how regulators kept banks away from adopting cloud infrastructure for years, until institutions like the Financial Conduct Authority began easing restrictions. Continuing this reminiscence, Dann notes that, given how much they invest in them, banks rarely throw out legacy systems entirely, instead opting to “layer over the top and look for solutions that connect what’s sitting in their legacy systems with the cloud, and so on”.

This ongoing technological balancing act also transformed the relationship between traditional lenders and emerging fintechs from outright competition into co-opetition and strategic partnerships. Indeed, many of the banks are starting to acquire the fintechs now, Macknight observes.

Hoffman crystallised this rapid evolution lifecycle by discussing his professional experience with blockchain technology. His introduction to working in the financial services journalism space was reporting on blockchain finance and he remembers it bursting onto the scene at Sibos in 2015, greeted with intense hype. Fast forward to today, and a question at an ITFA panel asked if blockchain was dead. Macknight observes that the technology, as many do, has morphed – it’s gone from the hyped new solution to being the fundamental “base layer for digital assets, stablecoins – all that kind of stuff,” she explains.

The graveyard of innovations

While there have been great technological advancements, Dann notes that it is hard to ignore the parallel trail of abandoned or failed initiatives. Past solutions like the Bank Payment Obligation (BPO) and early iterations of digital supply chain finance networks generated enormous industry excitement initially, only to stall or be abandoned.

Dann acknowledges the challenges of navigating this “graveyard” of ideas and as a sector remain open to, and excited for, the next idea, while at the same time not falling for every pitch. “How do you encourage an emotion? How do you go on with the sandboxes and looking for the next big thing without looking back at the graveyard of the sort of millions of dollars that have gone into the things that haven’t worked?”

Meida consumption in the modern age

Technology has also impacted how audiences consume media. Reduced publishing costs allow trade outlets and media entities to deliver content across multiple channels, ranging from podcasts and video interviews to concise digital updates. There is media to cater to all audience preferences.

There is a cultural shift also. It is now more widely accepted to jump to, say, quick highlights from short-form news pieces on your phone while simultaneously consuming long-form content. Dann remarks on the “wonderful mix of old and new”, whereby professionals might get breaking news from a digital highlight on their phone, then refer to tried and tested reference texts like classic trade finance guides to gain a deeper insight into what’s really going on behind that breaking news story.

With people constantly juggling different sources of information, the responsibility of specialised media goes beyond simply gathering news. Instead, such outlets must serve as an active guide – “provide a conduit,” as Dann puts it – helping filter through the digital noise, highlight the insights that matter, and facilitate a deeper dive into these insights.

The duty to educate

Indeed, Macknight feels trade publications have a unique role that other financial news outlets don’t necessarily prioritise: education. “Trade publications have another role to play, which is really about that deeper analysis,” Macknight argues. “When you’re trying to educate the whole industry, it’s not enough just to say something’s happened. You need to say, ‘Okay, why is this important?’… ‘What came before it, why this is different and how this will impact how you do your job?’”

For Dann, trade finance reporting is crucial for content that connects the technical mechanics of the industry with the real-world outcomes important to the readers. She believes publications like TTP fill an important niche for the audience looking “to understand how a transaction works and how that affects the ordinary person who will be going to the supermarket and wondering why the shelves haven’t got any avocados on it or the coffee’s gone up twice the price”.

The importance of independence

As the discussion came to a close, the importance of independent media like TTP was brought to the fore. As Macknight explains, when content is beholden to a sponsor “then in actual fact everything is leaning towards supporting them instead of actually having that independent voice”. Independent media retains the latitude to speak across the entire ecosystem, cross-examine competing market views, and report the real story of what’s going on.

Not that there isn’t a place for sponsored content, Macknight acknowledges. As Dann observes, “yes, [content marketing] has an agenda, but it does have a place in the mix”. Brand journalism and well-crafted institutional insights show the client base how specific products and structures operate in practice and the role of the organisation providing this content. Both types of journalism are a valuable part of the overall media ecosystem.

As Hoffman observes in his concluding remarks, independent media outlets like TTP “have a responsibility, in a sense, to help educate especially some of the newer people that might be coming into the industry,” translating complex industry jargon into something that they can understand. This gives these professionals an invaluable, broad overview of the industry as they develop into its future leaders.

Prefer to listen? The full conversation is also available as a podcast below.