October 2008

Regulation Rules Ok

10 October 2008
At this year’s SIBOS, which found itself understandably preoccupied with the meltdown in the financial system, nigh-on 1,000 delegates packed themselves into the plenary room on the very afternoon of ‘Meltdown Monday.’ The opening session could not have been more timely; just hours after the Lehman and Merrill Lynch news hit the wires, the debate swung rapidly to how global links can also become the vehicle of cross-contagion. Crucially, the mood centered on how policy-makers and the financial services industry work together to avoid a recurrence.

It’s a hard knock life!

10 October 2008
Not many people outside of the likes of Warren Buffet get to make too much money out of a Wall Street crash. But eerily reminiscent of recent events, the tale of Annie, played out in the eponymous musical set amid the grim post-Great Depression epoch of nineteen-thirties America, made its creator Charles Strouse a very wealthy fella indeed. Well, a generation later and we have a whole new song and dance on our hands! Perhaps only once imaginable as the stuff of Broadway fantasy, it’s virtually inconceivable how the prevailing sentiment has turned on a veritable sixpence, from traders once interested only in the return on their money, to suddenly becoming worried about the return of their money!

Joining the dots

10 October 2008
FX electronic trading is rapidly maturing, but it is only with aggregation that the true benefits, using automated smart order routing, can be achieved. The speed at which the large FX players have adopted electronic trading has already had a profound effect on the market, but now that buy-side firms are increasingly turning to aggregation techniques, as their volumes grow, it looks set to change the fundamental way FX is traded. It is levelling the playing field between the buy-side and the sell-side because firms can see the entire market and are using sophisticated algorithms to find the best price, and enabling large orders to be executed anonymously and with minimal market impact. Aggregation also enables buy-side firms to interact with all their FX providers simultaneously spreading large orders across different liquidity providers.

“India shining?”

10 October 2008
Notorious as a political jingle invoking the overall feeling of economic optimism in the country after plentiful rains in 2003 and the success of the Indian IT boom, India Shining was popularized by the then-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for the 2004 Indian general elections. The slogan, which drew much criticism for glossing over a raft of social problems, including poverty and social inequality, having been coined by the political elite and joyfully parroted by the relatively sparse upwardly mobile consumer class, certainly lent the country’s internal market something of a glossy welcome to the 21st century.

2008 Global Corporate Treasury Research Programme

10 October 2008
Treasury Strategies is pleased to present the results of the 2008 Global Corporate Treasury Research Programme. This year’s programme covers the treasury management practices of 970 corporations across North America, Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Responses were gathered in June 2008 through both telephone interviews and questionnaires. Responses were weighted so that sampling differences across countries within a region were normalized. In this issue, we provide a summary of the research at a Global level. In subsequent issues, we will provide additional detail for Europe and North America.

NSPCC City Dinner challenges credit crunch

10 October 2008
The City Dinner, now in its 13th year, has enjoyed tremendous support, raising money for the activities of the NSPCC Helpline, which acts as the frontline for adults who are concerned about the welfare of children and young people. Trained specialists provide advice, counselling and information - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - to anyone who has concerns about a child at risk of abuse or who is being abused. The NSPCC - Britain’s leading charity specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children - currently can’t answer every call to the Helpline. The City Dinner provides the opportunity for those who work in the City to make a huge difference to the lives of vulnerable children and young people.