WestLB joins JWG-IT
JWG-IT Limited, the think-tank for EU driven IT change in financial services, is pleased to announce that WestLB has joined as a gold member. WestLB, one of Europe’s leading commercial banks with total assets of €265 billion as of December 2005, has been engaging in JWG-IT’s firm-led dialogue on the implementation issues surrounding MiFID.
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Today, WestLB identified the factors which influenced their decision to subscribe to JWG-IT's member service. Philip Dätwiler, Global Head of Compliance Training, commented: "At WestLB we find the future MiFID Market Models and analysis developed within the JWG-IT think-tank provide very useful and practical insights, which help us identify specific operational issues quickly. We particularly appreciate the quality of debate generated by the bank experts from major European players which has made JWG-IT workshops a "must attend" for our MiFID programme office and workstream leads in the bank."
WestLB is the latest financial institution to see the benefit of an independent forum to address the operational issues that are emerging from MiFID. Since its inception in January 2006, JWG-IT has facilitated over 800 hours of workshops with 75 participants from 20 major financial institutions. Members have logged over 250 implementation issues to date and defined 40 practical "MiFID Market Models" which address the trade lifecycle, governance and control and implementation changes required by 1 November 2007.
PJ Di Giammarino, CEO of JWG-IT Group, today welcomed WestLB's commitment to the think-tank. "WestLB is the latest financial institution to recognise the value of JWG-IT's collaborative approach. As the industry begins to realise the complexity and cost of MiFID migration, we have seen a significant surge of interest; there are now hundreds of people involved in MiFID implementation in the UK alone. With one year to go, a number of firms still have major issues to address. The front-runners are already beginning to think about how they will start testing new operating models in May 2007."