Green confirmations get closer!

The announcement that OMGEO is leading the way to finally eliminate paper confirmations as a regulatory requirement can only be welcomed by all in the securities industry. The explosion of electronic trading and the fact that nearly all investors either private or corporate have access to the web, must make this ridiculous rule outdated, being left over from a bygone age and quite rightly should now be defunct.

Surely the requirement of the financial services firm to prove confirmation should either be electronic or paper but not both. However, it must still be left open, so that those investors who wish to have paper can do so, but do not get both. I am not sure if there has been much research into the percentage of investors wishing paper confirmations against those for electronic but I suspect that over the last ten years there has been an overwhelming shift to electronic, especially as green issues are raised.

These archaic rules sometimes need a culling to ensure that client services are maintained to a 21st Century standard and should not leave a loophole, which causes the majority to be slowed down by an absolute minority and incur the associated costs involved.

OMGEO need all the support the industry can offer in pulling the regulators out of the dark ages and forward into this age, where speed is often the essence if not the desire.