New technologies and the pace of their introduction are shaking up the cozy relationship between the providers in the global securities industry and the functions they perform. Firms are now re-examining the way they do business and, by extension, the quality of services they provide to their customers. They are doing this because of pressures on margins and time (shortening settlement cycles) and increasing focus on the risks of failed transactions.

Concurrently, the global securities industry is now being blitzed with strategic initiatives. Most are symptoms of a desire for transformational change: the FIX initiatives in the US and the UK, the prospect of national central securities depositories linking in Europe, the prospects of national stock and financial futures exchanges merging, the Port project in the UK, and the Big Bang in Japan. They are all clamoring for share of mind and of pocket, contending for scarce resources at precisely the time when firms are powering up to handle the transitions to the Euro and the Year 2000.

A consensus view is also emerging that straight-through processing (STP) is fundamental for the reduction of operational and market costs and risks endured in securities processing. The recently publicized white papers by the IDC and the IOA/ISITC's "Working Party on Electronic Trade Confirmation" in fact reflect new approaches in the industry to improve STP. There is clearly an urgent need for an industry-accepted and comprehensive automation model or at least a means to accommodate the alternatives offered.