Eric Leenders - Vikram Lund

Welcome to Episode Five of Progressing Financial Markets, a podcast series brought to you by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM.

On today’s show, we talk to Eric Leenders of the British Bankers Association and Vikram Lund of IBM about Moving the Retail Banking Industry Forward.

As the head of the Retail team at the British Bankers’ Association, Eric’s brief covers a broad portfolio of issues, including forthcoming revisions to the Consumer Credit Act, PPI, proposed changes to insolvency and debt management legislation, pensions and savings, and the Banking Code. Eric has over twenty years experience as a career banker in retail banking with NatWest and latterly the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. During this time, the roles he has undertaken have been both operational and strategic, including successful spells as a branch and business manager. Before joining the BBA, he was responsible for a portfolio of policy-driven projects in PR and communications, new and emergent markets, legal and regulatory issues and crisis management.

Vikram Lund is a Banker with over 20 years of experience in the retail banking industry. He has been with IBM for 10 years and has held various management positions in the Banking Industry Team. Prior to IBM he has held senior positions with major US Banks responsible for developing and managing wealth management businesses. Presently, Mr. Lund serves as the Banking Industry Leader for North East Europe. In this role, he is responsible for driving growth in our Banking business. He is responsible for key client relationships and driving IBM’s overall solutions business.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

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 PFM05 - Moving Forward [35:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
Mark Austen - Richard Balarkas

Welcome to Episode Four of Progressing Financial Markets, a podcast series brought to you by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM.

On today’s show, we talk to Richard Balarkas of Instinet and Mark Austen of SIFMA about the various challenges that the Financial Markets industry is currently facing.

Richard Balarkas is CEO and President of Instinet Europe Limited, the agency broking subsidiary of Nomura Holdings Inc whose services include high touch sales trading, global portfolio trading, algorithmic trading, smart order routing, DMA and commission management services. Prior to joining Instinet Richard was a Managing Director of Credit Suisse and Global Head of AES (Advanced Execution Services) Sales responsible for multi asset electronic trading services including direct market access and algorithmic trading.

Mark Austen is European Managing Director of SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. His primary areas of responsibility are the European Primary Dealers Association (EPDA) and SIFMA’s work in the international repo market. Prior to joining SIFMA, Mark worked for MTS Group, the European trading platform for fixed income securities, where he was head of Legal and Compliance.

In this interview, Richard and Mark discuss with Keith Saxton of IBM and Mike O’Hara of Voices in Business some of the major challenges now facing the Financial Markets industry in the wake of one of its most turbulent ever years.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

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 PFM04 - Challenges [33:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Michael Dawson

Welcome to Episode Three of Progressing Financial Markets, a podcast series brought to you by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM.

On today’s show, we talk to Michael Dawson, CEO of Promontory Financial Group (UK) Ltd, about the changing face of Regulation in the wake of the recent turmoil in the world’s financial markets.

Michael is responsible for Promontory’s European practice, focusing on global risk management solutions for European-based banks and the European operations of banks headquartered elsewhere in the world.  He also leads the Group’s extensive practice in global anti-money laundering compliance. Prior to joining Promontory in 2004, Mr. Dawson was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Compliance Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

In this interview, Michael discusses with Keith Saxton of IBM and Mike O’Hara of Voices in Business the trend for greater co-operation between regulators, the challenges that need to be faced by national governments, the dangers of both “knee-jerk” reactions and inaction, some of the problems associated with Basel II, and the impact of technology on regulation.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

Links:

Promontory Financial - www.promontory.com

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 PFM03 - Regulation [24:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

James Gardner

Welcome to Episode Two of Progressing Financial Markets, a podcast series brought to you by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM.

On today’s show, we talk to James Gardner, Head of Innovation & Research at Lloyds TSB about Innovation in Financial Services.

James is overall responsible for managing the innovation process at Lloyds TSB, the UK’s largest retail bank. Earlier in his career, he held senior positions at Getronics and Microsoft. His recently written book “Innovation and the Future-Proof Bank” will be published in 2009 and he blogs on a regular basis at www.bankervision.typepad.com.

In this interview, James discusses with Suzanne Duncan of IBM and Mike O’Hara of Voices in Business how the innovation process can be both managed and measured, the subject of innovation risk, and some of the strategies that can be adopted by a bank in order to foster a successful innovation culture.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

Links:

BankerVision - James’ blog

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 PFM02 - Innovation [16:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lee Hodgkinson

Welcome to Episode One of Progressing Financial Markets, a podcast series brought to you by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM.

This first episode of the series, entitled “Setting the Scene”, features Lee Hodgkinson, CEO of SWX Europe, in conversation with Keith Saxton, Global Director of Financial Markets at IBM and Suzanne Duncan, Financial Markets Industry Leader at IBM’s Institute for Business Value.

Lee has been a member of the SWX Swiss Exchange Management Committee for five years, holding responsibility for the Market Operations division, where he led the development of SWX’s high-capacity transaction platform. He joined the company in 2001 as Head of Operations before becoming Director of Business Development. He began his career in the Markets Division of the London Stock Exchange, where he worked for nine years and is an alumni of Harvard Business School.

In this interview, Lee discusses with Keith and Suzanne how the current market outlook has affected his own strategic initiatives, the changing role of technology within the trading environment, how liquidity power is shifting across the industry, the impact of dark pools and algorithmic trading, how risk management is evolving and the ever-present but constantly changing world of regulation.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

Links:

SWX Europe

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 PFM01 - Setting The Scene [29:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Keith Saxton - Suzanne Duncan

Welcome to “Progressing Financial Markets“, a podcast series brought to you by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM.

In this introductory episode, Mike O’Hara of Voices in Business talks to co-hosts Keith Saxton, IBM’s Global Director of Financial Markets and Suzanne Duncan, Financial Markets Industry Leader at IBM’s Institute for Business Value, about some of the issues and topics that will be covered throughout the series.

We welcome all feedback, so please leave a comment here on the website, call us to leave an audio comment on +44 20 7193 1295, or send a message to comments@voicesinbusiness.com

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 Introduction to Progressing Financial Markets [8:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Progressing Financial Markets is a series of podcasts produced by Voices in Business and sponsored by IBM, challenging Financial Markets Industry Leaders to set out their vision for how FM companies can respond positively to uncertain times.

The credit crisis has resulted in one of the worst shocks to the market since the depression, according to executives we have recently interviewed. As a result, the industry has wiped out two-and-a-half years of profit.  Although executives and regulators are asking whether the financial services industry destroys more value than it adds, we are optimistic about the long term prospects for the industry.  

Firms now must adjust to the reality that many of their high returns were based on two amplifiers, securitization and leverage, which led to significant writedowns. Regardless of how individual firms performed, all are shifting from survival-mode to focusing on making money in this new world. Top strategic initiatives include managing risk, unleashing dramatic cost take-outs, and considering ways to specialize. Firms will also focus on meeting new regulatory requirements once these requirements are fully defined.

In this series of podcasts we will reference the industry challenges and opportunities based around 5 themes

1. Risk
2. The Client
3. Globalisation
4. Data  
5. Scale squander and technology

We will be discussing with a number of industry leaders how they and their firms are responding to these challenges, such as:

- Is the credit crisis an opportunity or a threat to your firm?
- The top two strategic priorities executives cited based on recent interviews conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value are 1. managing risk and 2. reducing costs. How do your near-term initiatives align with these priorities?  
- What people, process and technology tactics will you take to manage risk?
- How will you reduce cost?  
- Have you changed the mix of business and technology initiatives as a result of the credit crisis?  Have any of your initiatives moved up on the priority list?  Have any initiatives been put on hold?  
- What are your largest challenges?  

We will also discuss the key industry drivers and challenges that are driving technology strategies and investments, and highlight the ever increasing role played by advanced technology in handling current and future complexity in the markets. We will explore the innovative approaches today’s leading firms are employing to address several key dimensions of the ‘data crisis’ including cloud computing, complex event processing and high-performance architectures in order to drive sustainable growth, manage risk across the enterprise, and how market participants can achieve a competitive advantage for both themselves and their clients.