The unbundling of equity research from trade execution was forecast to be the second big bang for the brokerage sector but, having evolved during a bull market rally, the process has been more like the tentative unravelling of a tightly wound ball of string than a revolutionary reorganisation.

Paul Myners, now the UK Government Minister for the City of London, first criticised the use of "soft commissions", where fund managers received free services including research from brokers in return for share trading, in March 2001 as part of his review of UK institutional investment.