The financial markets never stand still. Since the early days of organized trading, progress has been made in all aspects of the markets including, of course, the trading itself. In the early days most exchanges were commodities based, then as the financial markets developed so we had stock exchanges and later, derivatives exchanges. Today there are exchanges which trade many different products reflecting the sophistication of the end-users. The globalization of the financial services industry and the consequent rationalization has created a situation where the major international banks are members of most of the main exchanges. It is hardly surprising, then, that the drive towards mergers of the exchanges is coming from the large member firms who have most to gain from operating on a few mega-exchanges rather than a host of exchanges located along geographical and country lines. Pressure on the traditional exchanges is coming also from the Internet-based exchanges. Cross-border trading has never been easier, although it is not always as cheap as it should be.

Let us look at the type of changes that have taken place, are taking place now and will take place in the future. We can start with Europe and Scandinavia.

The introduction of the euro and the notional Eurozone inevitably led to the key participants in the European markets focusing on what change would be needed and how it might come about. Monetary union removed a vast amount of hitherto foreign exchange dealing and, of course, created a European Central Bank. Elsewhere...