But then what happened, they did this, and then later on, these institutions were fined billions of dollars by the government. And I guess my question is would you call this nefarious behavior on the part of the government to do this to these companies that basically helped out the government and the FDIC, in taking over these insolvent institutions? President Dudley: Well, I wasn’t part of any of those conversations, so I don’t know what winks or nods were actually exchanged. Look, I think the banks are, people are, managers are big boys and girls. And I think when they were making these transactions, they had the ability to negotiate whatever terms and conditions that they wanted to negotiate. Now, I understand that there’s some bad feelings after the fact, to the extent that the sins of the institutions that were acquired went along with those entities. But it’d be a little bit sad if you can have institutions do lots of bad things and then have them acquired and then have their sins sort of automatically forgiven because they were acquired by another institution. That would be a sort of “get out of jail free” card. And so I’m not sure that’s necessarily the right approach either. 13 / 13  BIS central bankers' speeches
Although London has tremendous critical mass – especially in the crucial area of human capital – one major implication of what I will say in a minute about technological innovation is that certain aspects of financial services – especially trading and settlement – are potentially more geographically mobile now than in the past. We are already in a market where it is possible for a trader in London to deal on a German exchange, call for delivery in Luxembourg and make payment in Paris. So, the advent of the euro is just one factor transforming the environment in which UK based financial services firms must operate. I would now like to talk about a few others. First and foremost, technological advances. Even from just a few years’ perspective it is clear that financial services have been transformed by technological innovation. Arguably we are moving to a world in which more and more trading and settlement processes will use automated, electronic systems. And the pace of change is probably increasing. The LSE moved away from a trading floor in 1986. It has since moved to electronic and largely dematerialised share settlement in CREST in 1996, and to the electronic order book SETS for its largest 100 or so stocks in 1997. Last year LIFFE decided to switch from floor trading to its new electronic CONNECT system. More broadly, electronic trading systems have been, or are being, introduced in a whole range of government bond, repo, Eurobond and foreign exchange markets.