Community

I really dont think its a technology issue more about raising understanding and awareness of the consumer. For many apathy is the major problem. Prepared to grumble asnd moan but take no action. The banks will hardly market portability so who will?

For portability to work there has to be a massive increase in showing the consumer that its worthwhile and not just as a knee jerk reaction to some banking failure to supply a service. This apathy is the main reason why consumers  prefer to sit moaning and this should be the main focus of attack. The technology will then be used

Needless to say your way off beam on just about everything but it is interesting the perception you have and the degree of indoctrination that me has been achieved.You did make me laugh about the SIBOS comment though. I assume that was a joke. Thanks for the comments and for brightening my day 

Agree that SWIFT are now doing the sort of things it should have done years ago. However is the finance industry best served with the existing structure? I have for so many years that SWIFT needs to be more commercial and that is what they are now doing now to a degree. Would the FS industry be better served if SWIFT was commercial and competed on a level playing field?

There is plenty of firms with FATCA projects but are failing to understand or know if they are compliant. Biggest mistake is that FATCA is not a TAX issue more about data. I have heard of plenty of FS firms skinned by consultants to comply with FATCA. I work with GlobeTax and produce a single template to measure compliance or not. I would like to say i feel sorry for FS firms being fleeced but i just cant bring myself too.No excuse for incompetence

What a fantastic investment Millennium has proved by the LSE. I suspect many more to come and someone at the Stock Exchange is really earning their bread

Since when did regulators give a stuff about investors? They have a great capacity to talk to everyone but listen to none in their consultations. We therefore will always get regulatory changes that might satisfy the few at the exepense of the many. Dont they know that we need a strong fair market that enables capital growth and the provision of pensions and employment. They always appear to me like pinitiky football referees stoping the game with a indulgeance to the rule book but leaving the game bereft of enjoyment and a unsatisfied crowd. Oh what can you do? 

First i think that SWIFT is the ISO authority is wrong the clearly have a confliction of interests. ISO20022 can be carried over any network but the Banks have little motivation to change as they also own SWIFT. They can control the pace of change and focus to their own interests

The point about the value of SWIFT and its glue potential holding the industry together is one of the reasons why after twenty plys years the FS industry is still laden with legacy technology and legacy thinking

Other industry have welcomed change and innovation and have benefits consumers but in FS we still have this rather odd and old idea that private networks and centralisation will solve our problems. After so long down this road its about time we all woke up to the fact that the existing system does not work. Certainly not for the world we live in today and the future

So why be defensive lets have an open mind and challenge convention and look for a better way of servicing investors,consumers and society

There is a real problem with HFT that it is must that a solution be found. We operating a two speed market. To a much slower degree than today the market has always been about speed and the capability to see a deal and profit and act before the prices change. This is a fundemental however today we have a structure where speed and technical capability out weighs investing. We have far too much trading that does impact the investor and sometimes adversly. A solution must be found and i do not like banning as a solution. We need a mechanism to better monitor and regulate the market to ensure its fair to all. Maybe some form of HFT tax might limit the use and profitability? What is certain is that the markets can not operate as they are today without defeating the main purpose of why they exist at all

Calastone has shown the way for OTC to copy this technology.I can imagin huge costs and risk savings. Pity they are only in the Funds business

Its interesting that we call the industry as either a buy side or sell side when for most there is hardly a difference in business and operations. This blurring of divisions is one reason why quality is hard to provide and even harder to prove. A regulatory and legal restruturing is called for but the presuposes that regulators know what they want and know how to police it

I wont hold my breath