Sibos is one of those annual events, like staff appraisals, that would be more interesting to hold biennially. Although we are never short of advice that our industry is in a state of permanent revolutionary change, even a cursory perusal of the agenda is a reminder that securities services changes a lot less than the management consultants would have us believe.
Delegates can still lament the lack of automation in corporate actions processing (try Asset servicing recent trends in corporate actions automation and new business tools to support your STP quest, November 1), look forward to the day when Russia has a market infrastructure that meets international standards (Russian securities market changes next steps and opportunities, October 29), wonder why it is taking so long to adopt the ISO 20022 standard (Why payments market infrastructures are adopting ISO 20022, October 30), wallow in nostalgia for the coming age of cross-border bond trading, clearing and settlement in Asia (Asian bond pilot platform goes live in Hong Kong and Malaysia, October 30) and enjoy grumbling about the Omgeo fee schedule (ETC and trade matching: From nice-to-have to necessity, November 1).
These quests have long since attained that Waiting for Godot character that makes them interesting only to true aficionados. The rest of us are better advised to pay attention to the developments that are going to cost money and trim margins in 2013, and, if they continue on their present trajectory, end in a catastrophe that throws the entire banking industry into the suffocating embrace of the state.
I bet you will not hear that at futuristic sessions (such as What will the European financial market infrastructure look like in 2020? on October 31), but you can get in the mood by asking regulators why they want bankers to send them unmanageably large reams of data (go to Trade repositories tackling new regulatory requirements for OTC derivatives on October 29 and Trade repositories: global versus local on October 30). If you are interested in a preview of how state-directed banking works in practice expensive, monopolistic, mispriced and long delayed you are best advised to catch up on the single settlement utility for Europe (T2S: project update and opportunities for non-European markets, November 1). Then take in the financial services industry tax known as regulation (Can technology carry the burden? is the tremulous hope of one session on October 29) and those increasingly hysterical demands for disclosure that bankers rightly fear will do more damage to their reputations (and bonuses) than any other factor (try Transparency in cross-border payments and the impact of Dodd-Frank Section 1073 on October 29, and then get over it at Transparency: Transforming business based on dynamic pricing & billing on October 30).
For an object lesson in how to manufacture the next crisis out of the false lessons of the last crisis this is a technique public officials have patented since 2008 the aptly titled session on CCPs (CCPs for OTC derivatives: The right answer or a nightmare in the making? on November 1) is a must. To prepare for a future in which CCPs are devouring anywhere between $4 and $22 trillion of eligible collateral, it is worth attending a SWIFT session for the first time (Update on SWIFTs collateral, clearing and settlement solutions: T2S and beyond, October 30) and listening to those who see an opportunity even in that trigger-for-disaster (Collateral management insourcing the next frontier, October 31).
But if you really want a glimpse at what that disaster will do to our civilization, let alone our industry, go to the Japan day sessions on November 1. The opening address is by the president and CEO of Mizuho (9 a.m.), a bank whose history since 1989 says it all. But the key sessions are at 9:30 a.m. (The current state of play in the Japanese financial landscape) and 11 a.m. (Japan: A view of the future?). It is too late for Europe and North America to avert going Japanese, but bankers from other markets in Asia, most of whom are as yet too young to have experienced the end-game of fractional reserve banking and fiat currencies, should heed the lessons.
Dominic Hobson