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This looks a good alternative to central matching and has to be considered due to the uncertainty about the future structure of post trade clearing and settlements accross financial products. Anything that can rationalise post trade matching and reduce costs has to be looked at

I totally dissagree with these findings. Apart from the major problems that getting the retail business to operate in virtually real time and the fact that accurate settlement data is still a huge industry problem there is simply not enough standards and far too much matching in different silos

Any cost reduction if there were any must be measured against the loss of revenues from stock borrowing and the like.

Reducing the settlement cycle only looks good to those that focus on a simplistic level.There is much work to do to get the industry working in almost real time to achieve T+2. Any reduction from current settlement success rates that run in the high nineties also appears to negate any benefits of change. I recomend that these studies go into far more detail before announcing any conclusions   

The QED service looks the best bet against any one commercial vendor.Kevin is a past master at introducing new services into tight markets and he knows the industry very well and a very clever appointment

Great news and the LEI project is gathering pace all the time. Expect more news soon as LEI begins to break into other products and markets. The next Post Trade Forum debate hosted by BT in September will examin in detail the full potential of LEI

The FSB has already included financial crime into its list of areas where LEI wil focus. So this is a start of a very long road. But it is a start. I understand about your description of current international markets but its my belief that this is a model that is going to be changed and LEI is the tool.

As you say in the mean time robust anti money laundering systems and practices must be the consideration. However these have been proved to fail regularly so not the long term answer

The legality within countries is the easiest to breakdown as anti money laundeing is a key requirement to attract internation business, investment and as we see with Standard Chartered can be costley

Thanks Ben, looks like you have it well covered. Will contact you direct

Thanks Ben for giving your point of view on the discussion so far. I get what is trying to be achieved and support the attempt. Its been long over due. What other ideas does your organisation have for raising and pushing this forward? I am always sceptical of industry groups that have a commercial interest in the outcome as we have seen with MiFID and many others. Would the organisation perhaps consider working with a independent acedemic organisation not related to the industry? Reading? Cass?

Look its not the issue that regulators get directly involved between vendor and supplier. Its all about performence of the systems and architecture to support the business. If its legacy and its working fine but this dshould be tested against existing support as part of the annual regulatory visit. It should be about planning for future changes and how management cope with new needs.

To do this work regulators should be more aware than today about technology and certainly more able to determin if a FS firm is taking on risks in their technology. Legacy may or may not be a risk. In my view legacy should be considered a potential risk if it is expected to do things it simply cant do. All this should form part of the regulatory audit check. Its up to the FS firm if they heed it or not. There is no point going into detail or specifying a model as none exist all firms have differing environments ,needs and capabilities. However its how they manage the supporting infra structure thats important and how that infrastructure supports the business. I am very supportive of regulators to get involved as part of their normal checks but first they need to make sure they have the right people and the level of knowledge required to carry out their function. Today i doubt this very much

A regultory involvement in technology support, devlopment and enhancement to asses the capability of the technology and systems to support the business and the ability of Banks to make good and correct decisions appears to me very sensible

When i was running operations the regulator would test most things but never technology or anything related. This always looked odd to me and caused me to create the BISS accreditation

I am therefore really supportive of regulatory interest. However i do agree with much of the sentiments posted that the regulatory involvement should be about performence and measuable capability to suport the business not replacement for the sake of it 

Well they would say this wouldnt they! However despite the vested interests of the story it does happen to be true. Legacy systems are the biggest risk to financial markets stability than virtually any other but it rarely gets air time. Also for many in the technology side it is their jobs on the line to change. Most technology people are only ever interested in the latest technology but they are almost side lined when it comes to strategic change. Whats certain is that the new financial world to come will put pressure on legacy and restrict financial institutions from being competative,compliant or profitible leaving the door open for new entrants with great idea and a purpose but most of all no legacy