Banks spend to save in fixed-income efficiency drive

For years, nobody cared that the booming fixed-income business was also inefficient – huge revenues concealed clunky processes, duplication and waste. Now, all of that needs to be removed or rebuilt. It’s expensive, but banks say it’s also essential. Lukas Becker reports

Zar Amrolia, Deutsche Bank

Any business that can generate $135 billion in revenues – as fixed income did for the top 10 houses in 2009 – can afford to brush off concerns that some of the money is draining away as a result of IT and organisational waste, but with revenues now at roughly half those levels, according to analytics firm Coalition, banks are under intense pressure to save money. At the biggest dealers, that has gone beyond traditional belt-tightening, to become a huge demolition-and-rebuilding exercise.

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