When compared to industries such as defense, health care, and retail, innovation in the capital markets can seem slow. This year, though, the coronavirus pandemic forced workers around the globe to stay home, which put an incredible strain on IT teams at most every bank, asset manager, and vendor in the space.

As a result, automation stepped to the forefront. Firms relied on the cloud. They experimented with emerging technologies. And as employees shifted to working from home on the fly