The first phase (between 1750 and 1830) was characterized by the invention of steam engines, cotton spinning machinery and the railways. The second was triggered by the invention, between 1879 and 1900, of electricity, the internal combustion engine and the provision of running water. The third phase encompassed the computer and the Internet revolution, beginning in the 1960s and peaking in the 1990s.
The fourth industrial revolution is the current digital revolution (see R. Gordon (2012), “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds”, NBER, Working Paper No. 18315, August 2012. The financial industry has always been an early adopter of new technology.