By Andrew Delaney, President & Editor-in-Chief, A-Team Group

MiFID is done and dusted. November came and went with nary a bother to speak of. There was no falling in of the sky. So, we don’t need to worry about MiFID anymore, right?

Wrong. To misquote our favourite and oft-repeated Churchillian phrase: November wasn’t the end. It wasn’t the beginning of the end. It was perhaps the end of the beginning.

We in Europe are living in a MiFID world. MiFID is now everything. It governs how investment services firms go about their business. And it reaches into other jurisdictions, meaning that while it’s an EU regulation, US Asian and other financial institutions are going to have to pay more and more attention to what it requires.

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By Thea George, Editorial Director, A-Team Group

At Swift’s last Sibos conference in Boston – way back in 1994 – one of the big questions being asked was whether Swift could ever realise its ambition to be a key player in the securities markets. While I’d be the last to ever suggest that things move slowly in this business, it has to be said that this same question is probably being discussed around you if you’re reading this at Sibos Boston 2007. Yes, great strides have been made in terms of growing volumes of securities related messages, and Swift now offers a range of solutions targeted at specific securities related problems. But, as Campos admits in our interview, Swift still has not achieved the penetration it craves and needs on the buy side of the securities market, particularly among that most powerful driver of today’s trading business, the hedge fund community.

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