Were you surprised by BlackRock’s selection of its new providers? You shouldn’t have been, if you’ve been paying attention for the last five years. When you’re on a winning streak, the best thing you can do is to keep on doing the same things you’ve been doing that helped you to win in the first…

Well, that didn’t age well. Barely a month after I argued that BBH’s investor services business should remain independent, it goes and does a USD3.5bn deal with State Street. Whilst the counterparties might hope that I would entitle this article “Stairway to Heaven”, it’s probably fairer to call it “You Might Think”, and here’s why.…

Did you, like me, have to stifle a yawn when you read the “news” that BBH had been in talks with BNP Paribas Securities Services about a possible merger? “Here we go again,” was my initial reaction. Those of us who have been in and around the industry for more years than we care to…

Who remembers when The Bank of New York bought a 4.9pct stake in what was then KAS-Associate in 2001? At a time when BNY was buying almost indiscriminately, it looked as if KAS would be yet another deal. But it didn’t turn out that way, and KAS had to wait until 2019 to be rescued…

19APR21: Oops – something went wrong! Surely it wasn’t meant to be like this. After three years of its competitors claiming that State Street’s acquisition of Charles River meant that it was no longer committed to open architecture, an inconvenient truth emerged: State Street can walk and chew gum at the same time. The evidence…

First, the boring bit – some facts. 2020 was a record year: most reported mandates, M&A transactions, and people moves since I began recording them in 1999. The WFH culture certainly didn’t stop inserv providers from building their businesses, nor their clients from launching new products. Of the 180 reported mandates, 39 were related to…

ISSA – the Zurich-based International Securities Services Association – is a sponsored talking shop. With a grab bag membership of global and local custodians, CSDs, exchanges and tech companies, it has always struggled to define its raison d’être. Its achievements are modest, and much of the valuable work it might have taken on has instead…

ERUPTION (Eddie Van Halen RIP) Custodians respond to the new normal – and it’s working. 13 October 2020: Welcome to our world, you could hear the Europeans and Japanese muttering under their breath as the U.S. banks began to confront the reality of a long-term low/no interest rate environment. But, for the trust banks at…