Over the last week or so I have managed to catch up with quite a lot of contacts, colleagues and friends across the industry. Having been away for 18-months or so I am keen to catch up so if anyone would like to brief me on their activities and let me know what they consider to be the important changes in the market then I am all ears. Please contact me on gvasey at comtechadvisory dot com. You will also find my phone number on this site’s contact page along with a form to contact us as well.
So what has changed? Well, everything and nothing it would seem. There have been mergers and acquisitions and vendor’s that disappeared but I know of at least 4 new vendors here in Europe that have sprung up in that time as well. Yes, there has been some consolidation in that the bigger vendors got bigger but this is a market full of niches. It is full of end users who have slightly or very different requirements (commodities, commodity management, location, assets, reporting etc.) and because of this diversity in needs and wants, there continues to be room for other vendors and even start ups. ComTech will be seeking to get a better grip on the diversity and how well current solutions, whether vendor-provided or homegrown, meet the needs of end users with a new research project shortly. We will announce it in due course but you can expect quite a vigorous research program from us for the remainder of the year.
For many in Europe, the big issue this year is regulation. EMIR, REMIT, MAD, MiFID2 and others all have at least partially come into force or are planned to do so during this year and next. Unfortunately, some of these regulations remain rather poorly defined creating confusion and even some consternation. Lurking in the background is also the financial transaction tax muted at the EU level and likely being adopted by a subset of EU countries. It is going to be a challenging time for the industry and the vendors will need to carefully appraise developments in this area too. The possibility is that the regulatory push could just be a game changer and allow a new set of entrants into the market. We will see. You can also expect to see us covering the regulatory environment quite closely.