At the European congress organised by ACI UK last May, talk of the town was the coming of age of the electronic trading systems in the financial markets. The product range offered on electronic platforms is as diverse as the products traded in the wholesale market from simple foreign exchange to money markets, derivatives, securities and the products linked to this world like repurchase transactions and security lending. Many systems have been developed by specialised companies, many have come and some have stayed. Sponsored electronic trading platforms by consortiums of banks have folded up because of a lack of success or lack of liquidity as they failed to attract enough participants to make the investment worthwhile. Other platforms have been sold and absorbed into existing platforms or by established voice brokers.

Vendors have jumped on these developments and some are well beyond the first generation of systems. Innovation seems to be key with ever more products that appeal to a wider range of customers in order to keep abreast of the competition.

Bank portals are also very common these days. The need to serve our customers faster and better together with the need for reduced costs of operating a dealing room have given a boost to bank owned portals. Looking into the implementation of Basle 2 and the potential capital charges for operational risks an enhanced straight through processing is possible with these systems. In most developed financial markets, the deal slip to be written by hand by the trader with processing by the back-office seems to be long gone.

If you look at the history of our Association that started nearly 50 years ago, the speed of innovation has become faster all the time, although the basic tools and principles of our profession has always been the same.

ACIs Board of Education offers exams resulting in members sitting in our ACI Dealing Certificate examinations. Once more experience is gained on the floor, most students take the ACI Diploma. A large training community makes sure our profession is passed on to newcomers in our markets,while some banks obviously offer in-house training. A number of our Associations offer educational seminars covering a wide range of products. The ACI dealing simulation course, the only course of its kind in the world, allows delegates to play the role and make trading decisions as a treasurer, trader, sales person or broker.

ACIs Committee for Professionalism is in charge of the Model Code, launched in May 2000. This International Code of Conduct and Practice for the Financial Markets covers a wide area of topics. As a selfregulatory industry body ACI wants to promote best market practise and conduct for the global, over-the-counter foreign exchange , money and related derivatives markets. Electronic broking is discussed in one chapter. However, the developments in this field gave rise to the need for an update of the printed version of the Model Code in October 2002. Continuous updates are made available on our website www.aciforex.com.

In recent months, the rapidly growing phenomenons of e-commerce/internet banking have given rise to a renewed look at these forms of trading. The CFP is of the opinion that more focus and clarity is needed regarding the conduct of users and portal owners as regard of best practise. The current development, not only in ACI markets, have highlighted the capacity to open treasury business to a much wider field of participants than has been possible in the past. Planning is underway to sit around the table with all vendors in this field and other interested parties in order to agree on best market guidelines. My members welcome suggestions from the financial community. When we have finalised this update our role as selfregulatory industry will avoid regulatory rules that could stifle innovation in this fast growing market sector.

As ACIs Model Code is part of our examination batteries, obviously any changes in the field of electronic trading will be covered by the trainers indirectly enforcing the recommendations that will be made in the next update of the Model Code covering this topic.