Process

I was with my bank this morning in Ireland having a coffee with the manager. He recounted a funny story from Monday of this week when he was walking through the front desk and saw a young man with a rucksack and shabby clothes. This man was obviously looking for something or someone but continued to wander aimlessly across the floor in the absence of his target.

Mike approached him to offer his assistance and the young man spoke in a very clear and educated American accent "I am looking for your foreclosures department".

Mike explained that there was no such department at the branch, or even at the organisations head office. Indeed Mike knows of no bank that has either a section or department of this type.

The young man was taken aback and a conversation ensued.

This man had only just gotten off a plain from Chicago and his parents asked him to go to the main office of Irelands largest bank to see if there were are bargains to be had - as they had long aspired to have a holiday home in the land of their forefathers, an "in thing" to do - Michael Jackson had just bought an island off our shores, which can been seen for Sarah Jessica Parkers house on the shore.

In Ireland and in the UK we have robust financial institutions. There has been more than one Government bail out in the UK and the possibility of yet another in Ireland - but these institutions were aggressive and their issues do not arise from domestic mortgage issues but from loans given out to stagnant developments (that looked good at the time).

The issue I point to is the difference between compliance and regulation. As a high level view point, In Europe we have regulation (do what you are told) and in the USA it is compliance (do what you said you would do and what you signed up to do).

I see that there will be huge opportunities for our market space (BPA, BPM, et al) as regulation comes to town in a much larger and more onerous way over the next three years.

And the Governments across the globe are talking of the need for this to be US Congress led. As such, I concur that legislation is imminent, that it will be aggressive, and that it will not have they latent implementation period that SOX had.

I there for believe that the flood gates will open and our SAM will grow exponentially. However it will be the leading few that benefit and the rest will follow on their shirt tails.

Now is the time to make sure that the relationships with the larger SI's are in place, that good research is done, that the board of directors is supported by good industry non-execs, and that more than any other subject, RISK COMMAND AND CONTROL has to be understood and emblazoned as a key feature of the product set (smoke and mirrors will do for most of today’s quadrant vendors). There is a short video here on how to capture risk in a process.

It shall be great - but then again, I might be wrong.........