Navel-gazing is a popular pastime in the securities business. Working parties, industry initiatives and trade associations flourish in the fertile soil of the financial services landscape, where membership of at least three industry committees is sine qua non for anyone aspiring to senior management. For some, the effectiveness of these groupings is less important than the quality of their annual dinners or the venue of their quarterly meetings.

This is charge that cannot be levelled against the Group of Thirty (G30), the private, Washington-based think-tank that looks at global economic and financial issues. Boasting a glittering array of central bankers, academics and private sector representatives, G30's reports and publications have consistently set a benchmark for high-quality research and clear-eyed proposals for reform. For the securities industry, G30 produced its seminal work on clearing and settlement in 1989, prompted by the stock market crash of 1987, in which it proposed nine improvements to market practices that soon became the yardstick by which securities infrastructure providers were judged.