
This week over 500 professionals representing insurance companies, banks and vendors convened the 6th annual Bermuda Captive Conference. For business entities "captive" insurance subsidiaries are used to insure and reinsure business activities of a parent company. The concept of a captive insurance company was developed in the early 1960s and there are approximately 5,000 captives worldwide. Bermuda has a long tradition of being home to many. According to the 2010 Bermuda Insurance Survey, the top 10 captives have assets in excess of $500 Billion dollars and report earned premiums of approximately $27 Billion. This conference was well attended and top discussion issues both in general sessions and the hallways were of the impacts of the impending Solvency II requirements, increased requirements for economic capital, integrated regulatory supervision and the balance between quantitative and qualitative enterprise risk management. While the captive insurance industry is a small segment of the global insurance industry, it has analogous implications for how the industry is approaching regulatory changes and the realities of revised economic capital requirements.

Since the start of the financial crisis, there have been dramatic changes in corporate banking relationships. The link between credit and treasury services business is not new, however, it is much stronger than in previous years.

If you weren't able to join us on our 2010 predictions webcast today, I wanted to at least share one of the predictions, specifically for Capital Markets, that I spoke to. I talked about capital markets reform being more bark than bite.

The AFP Exchange Magazine that landed in my mailbox today contains an article about cash management in 2009 and 2010, which is based on interviews with six corporate treasurers. Not surprisingly, the conversations with this group align completely with the research we did earlier this year - counterparty risk overshadows all other concerns, cash forecasting must be improved, banking relationships will change as rates rise and FDIC coverage changes, and the need for efficiency is greater than ever as expectations of treasurers and their staff increase. Looking forward to 2010, this group plans to rationalize banking relationships, continue to focus on safety and soundness, and invest in technology to improve efficiency.

The annual survey of technology companies driving solutions into the global financial services industry has been completed and has yielded a silver lining to what otherwise could be classified as an unprecedented year of stress and capital rationing.

The 2009 AFP Annual Conference was held in San Francisco this year from October 4-7, and was a more subdued affair than last year, as you might expect given the state of the economy. There were fewer attendees (4,000, according to AFP), and fewer major announcements. In fact, the major topic of discussion, as far as payments was concerned, was business-to-business (B2B) electronic payments, one of those opportunities that, like micropayments and mobile payments, seems like it should be huge but never seems to quite get off the ground.

Please watch or download for those of you who do not have access to YouTube the following perspective on sustainability services for financial services firms.

For those of you who just can't get enough of our North American corporate treasurer's survey, here are some of the questions from our Webcast that we didn’t get to answer live. And, let me just say, "Wow!".

For most companies the 2010 budget cycle is in full swing and given the events within the financial services industry over the past year, it will not be a quick, easy or pretty process this year. The global financial services crisis and ensuing recession have brought risk management technologies and processes front and center to an organization's survival. Being able to identify key risks, understand their impacts and tangibly make moves to control and monitor them are a requirement, not an analytical goal in this environment.

IDC Financial Insights tracks each bank closing. It seems that most Friday nights an announcement is made, and subsequently we update our database with the latest hit to the Deposit Insurance Fund. How many more hits are left? Will the FDIC have to impose yet another special assessment?