JAPANESE JUMP ON BIG BANDWAGON
For all the players learning the new rules of London's financial services industry, Big Bang has become big bandwagon. The established houses have rushed (with very few, if very notable, exceptions) to form alliances and newcomers have queued to join all the markets for which they are eligible. It has given a bright glow to the property and personnel market, and sent all but the smartest financial institutions into a technological skid. So when the senior executive of a Japanese securities house tells you that his ambitions in London have nothing to do with Big Bang, think twice.
"We're here, in the first place, because of the Euromarket,' said Katsuhiko Fujimoto, chairman and managing director of Daiwa Europe in London. "And the reason we're expanding into gilts and equities is because our customers in Japan demand it, not because of Big Bang.'
Japanese financial institutions have rarely been accused of flighty, short-term opportunism, and they shouldn't be now. They may be growing fast in London, but it is not merely because they have suddenly been permitted to: it is because it fits their strategy. "There's a growing awareness in Japan of foreign equity,' said Fujimoto.