Roger Liddell's appointment last week as chief executive of Europe's largest clearing house heralds a new era for LCH.Clearnet and the former Goldman Sachs partner has shown he intends to shake up the organisation.

On his second day in the job, LCH.Clearnet said it had written off €47.8m ($60m) invested in an IT project. A spokesman said the decision to scrap the generic clearing system had been made before Liddell's appointment but the timing of the announcements was not a coincidence.