We note seven events on securities finance coming up in Europe, starting with IMN’s Beneficial Owner event and ending with Collateral World, including two events of our own. This article offers a summary of where we will be, where we won’t be, and what attendees can expect. Then we wrap up the month by heading to SIBOS in Boston.
The week kicks off tonight with Global Investor/ISF’s annual equity lending awards dinner in London, typically held right around IMN. This black tie event honors the best of the securities finance world. In truth though, there are many excellent participants in this market, so we see these dinners more as a party and social event as opposed to declaring any firm the single winner. Will we be there? Check.
IMN’s London beneficial owner’s event is September 16-17 and will be well attended. We think that the panel on CCPs will be the most hotly debated. We’re also looking forward to discussing, really, shrinkage in securities lending and whether this is good, bad or indifferent for the market. IMN has done a good job of late at adapting to changing times. While some of the standby topics are still there (regulatory update, anyone?), we think that more change means a more interesting conference. We hold to our thesis that while securities lending may shrink, the need for securities financing will not. That ought to keep IMN hopping for some years to come. Will we be there? Check.
Finadium’s Zurich Securities Lending and Repo Update, held in cooperation with Zurcher Kantonalbank and Eurex Clearing on September 18, takes the show on the road. We have an excellent agenda planned for the Swiss audience and look forward to an attendance of 30 from domestic and international banks, beneficial owners and regulators. We’ll be running the panel on this one.
The Finadium event, Building New Business Models for Repo and Secured Funding, brings us back to London for September 22. Our prep call for this event raised some pretty hot topics and we expect a real discussion amongst the panelists and hopefully the 76 people who have now registered. Some of the core questions to be discussed are: can there be credit intermediation without balance sheet, and what new products could help the markets? Participants at this event should come prepared to get at the meat and potatoes. Our thanks to sponsors Euroclear and SunGard for helping continue this annual event. We’ll be there of course.
Meanwhile on September 22, ICMA’s repo training run by Rich Comotto is reportedly sold out. This course covers the nuts and bolts of repo mechanics. Will we be there? Nope.
Marcus Evans is running a securities lending and repo event on September 22-23. We admit that their timing has us a bit confused, coming on the heels of IMN and conflicting with our event, the ICMA training and yet another collateral/funding oriented event, Collateral World (see below). When last we heard Marcus Evans had 40 people attending this two day conference, but the agenda looked a little thin. The conference is a good idea but the timing conflicts may be too much to surmount. We’re passing on this one.
And lastly, FC Business Intelligence launches Collateral World in London on September 23. This event looks like a UK competitor to Fleming’s Collateral Management event typically held later in the fall. So far the FC crowd is numbering about 50 attendees with your standard collateral management topics on offer. We’ll be there to talk about RFPs for collateral management systems. We also intend to slip in the idea that the RFP is very important, but even more important is a good business plan for how collateral is going to run before going out to RFP. As it turns out, we’ll also be chairing part of Fleming’s Amsterdam collateral management event.
The month will wrap up at SIBOS in Boston, a 7,000 person event focused on all sorts of banking activity. Will we there be? Check. Better rest up for that one.