MiFID has already had a huge impact in Europe - particularly on the conference and event management scene. And as my fellow bloggers Chrisses
Skinner and
Pickles have been regularly pointing out here on the Finextra Communities, it is going to have a huge, though uncertain, impact on market practices in the global capital markets in the coming years.
One thing I've noticed is the colourful reaction from banks positioning themselves to take advantage of the new opportunities it gives them to compete in the area of execution and trade reporting.
We've got projects Turquoise and Boat, with mostly the same organisations involved in both except for a couple that couldn't get involved with the trading platform Turquoise because of relationships with the London Stock Exchange. And we've heard briefly
about Project Yellow Submarine, a similar execution/trade reporting initiative from
three big French banks and a German co-op.
We're still waiting on some important announcements from these organisations -- possibly before the end of summer. Who will provide the technology for the Turquoise trading platform? (OMX or Chi-X are supposedly in the frame). Who will they choose as CEO
for the initiative? And has the submarine sunk already? Financial News reports that
SocGen and BNP Paribas might be surfacing as new shareholders in Turquoise rather than pursuing their Beatles-inspired strategy.
Leaving these serious matters aside, I was wondering if any other banks want to get together on some kind of Mifid-related project, and keep the theme going, what should they call it? Project Purple Jetski has a certain ring to it. Or how about Project Hovercraft?
Any other suggestions?