What were you doing 10 years ago? Were you sweating bullets over the viability of Taurus, the ill-fated settlement system for the UK? Or, along with a few of your peers, were you starting to wonder whether there was a better way to confirm trades with your brokers? It is frightening to think that, next month, it will be 10 years since the first rumblings that would become the electronic trade confirmation initiative (ETC) - years that have seen significant change in some areas, and practically none in many others.

Swift, for example - headed by Lenny Schrank - continues to be completely out of touch with the securities business. And committees, working parties, industry groups and trade associations still blossom and wilt with comforting regularity, largely employing the same faces to look at the same problems without any prospect of getting anywhere in a hurry. Sometimes they change their names - such as ESIUG to ESF, or ISITC to ISITC-IOA - but the net result is usually depressingly familiar.