European Financial Services: Our Approach
"Bringing you the knowledge and skills of Graham Bishop and His Associates".
The financial services industry in the EU is undergoing a transformation as a result of the opening up of cross-border markets and the introduction of a single currency in much of the Union. There is much more to come and the benefits will flow to those firms that recognise the implications of the transformation and plan ahead to take advantage of the opportunities. The problem is how to identify the relevant legislative developments in good time so that the firm itself can lobby the legislators if it feels the need to do so - perhaps because the proposal may be defective, so potentially not producing the desired results.
Our work with many financial institutions demonstrates that they have great difficulty in keeping up with the pace of developments - even if there is already a serious commitment to "Brussels watching". For those that have not made a big commitment, understanding - and thus the ability to comment constructively on proposals - is rather limited. Worse, the firm may not even realise the implications until too late and the law is settled.
The scale of the EU's undertaking is now being recognised in the outside world. So the non-EU firm or government may be watching the mushrooming of legislative detail in the EU that is designed to create this single, pan-EU financial market and be wondering what political drivers are at work as well as the driving force of new markets. Are there any lessons that could be applied at home?
The mission we have set ourselves is simple: Provide accurate and detailed factual information. We seek out all the information that we can find and add it to the website - whatever our view of its arguments - as our objective is to provide as much as possible of the thinking that is likely to influence policy-making.
Our own leading edge thinking on these topics is combined with our hallmark: independence of analysis, presented in our particular style of thought leadership. But our own analysis is clearly distinguished from the flow of news. It may be presented in Occasional Papers or be incorporated in the Overview of the Financial Services Month in Brussels - a personal, signed commentary by Graham Bishop. However, there is an obvious implication that flows from our independence - we are not lobbyists for a particular commercial interest.
So our approach should help your organisation achieve a competitive edge amidst these regulatory – and therefore market - changes. But that does not have to be expensive and, in these days of great pressure on budgets, GrahamBishop.com - as a “virtual” organisation - is well placed to keep costs down. Our monitoring service is designed to provide top-class research at a fraction of the cost of comparable in-house service. Moreover, we continuously improve the quality of our services in terms of both content and delivery mechanism. So we provide a very cost-effective solution to monitoring all aspects of financial Brussels.
Monitoring
So we have constructed layers of services and products to enable clients to choose what they need at any specific moment. GrahamBishop.com has developed a comprehensive Premium Monitoring System to meet the need that has become apparent to us during our regular briefing sessions and discussions with clients. This includes access to all the 8000 events on our Monitoring Policy Events, as well as up dating via the full weekly e-mail and the "Financial Services Month in Brussels". This package also includes access to our Edited Minutes of key legislative committees, notes from our client meetings (EFF and BFC), Graham Bishop's Occasional Papers, the listing of key public sector legislative players, competition issues in financial services. This package also includes our "Future Events in EU Financial Services publication".
However, a large firm may need many individuals to have access to specific details in their business area, whilst avoiding an overload of irrelevant detail in other areas! So the Premium Monitoring System could be available to all the firm's staff so that they can select from the full range of our information. The weekly e-mail and the “Financial Services Month in Brussels” can be placed on the Intranet so the links would be live if accessed from the firm's Internet connection. Alternatively, each relevant staff member can register and receive a personal user-name/password. The publications will be sent direct to them when published and we can tailor these services precisely to any individual. In fact, individuals can go further and use the RSS facility to select only the sectors where they are interested in getting news.
But not all clients need such a wide range of information so our Monitoring Policy Events system provides the essential facts on each of six major categories and allows subscription to any combination of them. This includes a weekly e-mail up-date on the selected categories. Reflecting our wish to be flexible and responsive to client needs, GrahamBishop.com continuously looks for opportunities to introduce new services broadly if it seems that a specific client request may reflect more general interest.
Enquiring for a single market
But “monitoring” - a firm grip on the facts - is only the starting point for creating a business strategy to take commercial advantage of the new opportunities that are opening up. We recognise that groups of financial institutions may have many problems in common and may be looking for a mechanism to identify possible solutions to these problems – and then influence the political decision-making system. We all believe that the political decision-making process is open to well-founded arguments about solutions that advance a single financial market in Europe. So we provide several mechanisms for clients to interact directly with policy-makers, but at a modest price and time commitment; our Brussels Financial Circle provides forward strategic thinking to influence the shape of future policy. But clients’ management will expect a focus of effort on immediate matters of current policy - debated amongst key policymakers from all the EU institutions: Council, Parliament and Commission. Our European Finance Forum could be that component.
"Brussels for Breakfast" is a particular example of our philosophy of co-operative problem solving. Since autumn 2004, Graham Bishop has acted as anchor to a monthly breakfast hosted by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) in the City of London. Applications have always exceeded our limit of 30 participants, so the format clearly meets a need. Its breadth runs far beyond "Brussels" as we include any events in the Member States and in other countries such as the United States that are likely to influence legislative action at the EU level. As the notes for the session formed a comprehensive overview of developments in the last month, we decided to package them into the “Financial Services Month in Brussels”, thus creating the core of our Premium Monitoring System.
The key co-operative element is that guests represent a wide spread of local market participants – from the financial services industry and professional support services (banks, insurance, money managers, lawyers, accountants and others). Experience shows that a leavening of public sector participants (Regulators, Central Bank and Finance Ministry) helps to create the atmosphere of a real policy debate. This induces an interaction between all the participants and that contributes to a lively discussion – precisely because the audience is well informed in their individual areas but wants to hear from people they know to be equally expert in other fields, thus rounding out their knowledge of Brussels developments.
During 2006 and 2007, the "Brussels for Breakfast" concept was successfully exported to Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris and Stockholm - with help from FESE members NYSE Euronext and OMX because FESE members are a recognised single, authoritative point for disseminating financial information. After this success around the EU, we broadened the reach in 2008 and visite4d Washington. As EU financial services legislation seems to be acquiring a global standard-setting role, it may be opportune to present this review of EU financial services policies locally to broaden discussion, and understanding, of events in far-away Brussels.
Co-operative problem solving can also take the form of a focussed workshop: GrahamBishop.com hosts “focussed workshops” on specific topics where key market experts can debate issues between themselves but in the presence of senior representatives of the European institutions. This process is designed to come to specific conclusions on a particular topic that is of critical business importance. However, it is also a debate between interested parties on what outcome will further the goal of a single market. This approach enhances the visibility and standing of the participants’ arguments in a very direct way, rather than being a lobbying effort. GrahamBishop.com has had excellent feedback from participants and European institutions alike on these workshops as we normally hold them in the format of "joint meetings" of the members of our European Finance Forum and Brussels Financial Circle.
Technological improvements
The GrahamBishop.com team has upgraded the technology of our website so that it now provides easier navigation and greater clarity. Several specific new features have been introduced:
1. The text highlights each acronym and its definition - by providing an immediate mouse-over screen definition, to help navigate the spaghetti of terms that sometimes makes it hard to understand the activities of the institutions.
2. There is a facility for members to “add your own comments” to the monthly report (especially to Graham Bishop’s personal overview) to correct any errors or differences in emphasis that they feel should be highlighted.
3. During 2007, a new service was introduced: “Edited Minutes of key legislative bodies” focussing on the financial services discussions especially of relevant European Parliament committees (ECON, IMCO, JURI). These Minutes now have the “add your own comments” facility and members who attended the meeting are encouraged to use it to enable the membership to build up a more detailed understanding of the dynamics of the Committees that are now genuinely the co-legislator for the industry.
4. The “My Library” function enables you to save documents that you are likely to want to refer to later.
5. Each section of our information service is now equipped with an RSS function so that you can have a feed that updates your web browser’s “Feeds”. So updates on your choice of information are "pushed" to you. This also gives you the opportunity to:
Update whenever any news is added to the GrahamBishop.com website: click on the RSS feed button on our home page www.GrahamBishop.com
Be informed whenever your selection of Category/Timeline(s) is up-dated: Go to your choice(s) and click on the RSS feed button
Improved search facilities to enable you to search even into PDF’s that are stored on the site. Correspondingly, there is a new policy to store such documents on site, rather than providing links to external sites where the documents are not easily searchable.