Rise of the cyborgs: tech remakes the front office

Dealers “have no choice” but to change, says UBS’s Orcel – and plenty of changes are coming

“Everyone talks about the rise of the robots and replacing humans altogether, but that’s not what’s happening here,” says Asita Anche, head of systematic market-making at Barclays in London. “It’s not humans versus machines; it’s humans versus humans who have been augmented with machines.”

Anche – who was lured from Goldman Sachs when Barclays created its new market-making team in June last year – is describing the front office of the future, in which salespeople and traders are surrounded by