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David's point on inventory and change control is spot-on. If only more banks had a handle on their exposure in this area. There's much talk but little action re Basel's concern over EUC risk, while there are firms out there with great tools to help construct not only the application inventory but also the data paths between the applications. The financial sense, if only in reduction of the capital adequacy haircut seems obvious.

An interesting approach, quite the reverse of the classic (but seldom adequately actioned) ploy of teaching coders to understand the business.  I sure JPM isn't guilty, but how many man hours (years?) have been wasted trying to untangle systems created with no quality or change control by various business experts who 'dabbled' with complex cross-linked spreadsheets and access databases. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing?

So good to see the word "enabler", a positive thing, rather than "disruptor", generally perceived as negative. In these times where collaboration is almost essential, disruption sets the wrong tone. The purpose of innovation is at least one (or all) of three things: (1) reduce cost of the basics; (2) force basic suppliers up the value chain; (3) enable stuff that's not been possible before.  These are only disruptive if incumbents fail to act on these points.

I think this is an interesting and promising move.  A suitable cloud infrastructure and well-defined APIs that allow integration with incumbant and alternative platforms (including contributions and, hopefully, peer-to-peer sharing) could do well as a global initiative.

@Herbert. That was one of the bits that didn't add up. "the simulated threat emanated from external actors" - presumably outside the firewalls. That plus "would have downloaded a malicious payload directly onto the bank's networks" suggest that you are correct.  I'd be worried if basic measures such as mentioned by Bjorn weren't in place :-)

Something doesn't add up here. Many would be astonished if, with a 250mn+ spend, JPM's security is so lax that a the download of a malicious payload would have passed through the firewall(s).  Even if it had not been blocked, surely anti-malware and pc lock-down would have prevented it running. If that is not the case, then I'd suggest that the $1000+ per employee per annum on cybersecurity could be spent more effectively.

Nicely put, Steve. And with the limits on availability fueling articifical demand, how can we trust the value of the market price?

This response seems unfortunate in a couple of ways: (1) It may dampen enthusiasm for, or even kill, progress on proper open (and auditable) federated messaging / chat, along the lines of the Markit initiative; (2) It's treating a symptom, not the disease. Price fixing has long been illegal; I suspect that banning a visible channel will merely drive such traffic back to voice - much easier to avoid surveillance.

This is not before time.  A thorough re-think with consequent re-engineering to reduce costs and overheads should be welcomed widely.

Maybe we should not view this as the 'end' of an initiative, but just an inevitable stumble on a path that is strewn with trip-steps. This particular expedition may not succeed but I detect an increasing will amongst the originators of market data to reduce costs if not monetise their data.

If you have access (or get the free trial), see  "www.waterstechnology.com/inside-market-data/opinion/1618113/whose-data-is-it-anyway" for a 12 year old view!

It's a well worn idea that will, IMHO, be picked up and brought to fruition as regulation, new players and maturing technology necessitate and facilitate change.