There is one place not to be missed by the players of the European custody industry: the annual NeMa Conference. After eight years, NeMa once again took place in Warsaw, and, since then, participation has nearly tripled. This year more than 400 attending professionals underlined the high relevance of this event, which UniCredit, since its inception, was once again proud to support as a main sponsor.
NeMa, Europe’s premier network management conference, consistently attracts brokers, global custodians, regional & local agent banks, regulators, stock exchanges and CSDs, all of whom are represented by high level delegations. Correspondingly, the list of panellists encompasses business leaders, media editors and officials. This year the list of Polish top executives included Mr. Adam Maciejwski, CEO of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, and Ms. Iwona Sroka, President & CEO of KDPW and KDPW_CCP. As the senior host to the event, UniCredit was represented by its Global Head of Global Securities Services, Tomasz Grajewski, who at the beginning of the conference used the opportunity to welcome the conference participants in his home town before elaborating on ideal ways to organise the custody and network function in the new environment.
The event has always been a hot spot for the post-trade business community in Central and Eastern Europe, resulting, amongst others, in the participation of numerous EMEA heads of large custodians. Recently, however, the event has started to reach beyond its traditional borders, also attracting participants from African and Asian developing countries.
Jeffrey Ong, Head of Sponsorship at NeMa, commented, “It’s terrific for people in industry that one of the key things to come out of NeMa is constructive collaboration. Even though this is mainly due to the effects of recent regulatory requirements, it’s good to see competitors making an effort to work together. This spirit of cooperation can almost certainly be attributed to the spirit of the NeMa conference series.”
Discussions on the podium as well as throughout the venue were dominated by the challenges the industry currently has to prepare for, mainly caused by major changes in the regulatory environment (both current and forthcoming). Implementing the full range of additional requirements from all sides, be it T2S or the increased demands from investors regarding data management, must be secured against the backdrop of cost cutting programmes within the banks.
A number of panels circled around the changing roles of both sub-custodians and global custodians in the new regulatory set-up. Participants also expressed their concerns as to whether the increased cost of risk was sufficiently covered in the traditional custody model.
A social highlight of the conference was the dinner reception held by UniCredit in conjunction with HSBC, which took place at a historic fort at the northern end of Warsaw’s Old Town. After a long day spent in air-conditioned conference halls, the participants enjoyed a beautiful summer night in a pleasant atmosphere, which not even the millions of mosquitoes were able to affect.
Veronika Rief