In the four years since our first Market Abuse Surveillance Survey in 2016, surveillance practices across the industry have transformed. Surveillance is more comprehensive and more technologically advanced than ever before. Advancements have been driven by the investments made by financial institutions and the software industry who have provided the technological equipment necessary to deliver more effective surveillance. However, downward pressure on budgets is commonplace, and not always congruent with the need to address continued gaps in surveillance.
Any prediction of the future is fraught with peril. Nonetheless we believe that surveillance advancements will principally be driven by technology, and yet technology progress is typically over-estimated over two years but under-estimated over ten years. While acknowledging the difficulties of peering too far into the future, this publication presents a fictionalised account of a Head of Surveillance looking back on the challenges they faced, here and now in the present, and reflecting on the steps taken in initiating and delivering on a successful surveillance transformation programme through to 2025. In doing so our Head of Surveillance contends with Covid, STOR visits, organisational restructures and addressing the difficulties inherent in achieving effective surveillance.
“Any prediction of the future is fraught with peril. Nonetheless we believe that surveillance advancements will principally be driven by technology, and yet technology progress is typically over-estimated over two years but under-estimated over ten years.”
“Nobody had said that the step up to Head of Surveillance would be easy and my first 30 days had been a whirlwind of frenetic activity as I took stock of current capabilities and identified the areas for improvement.”
“For Heads of Surveillance today it’s a truth universally acknowledged that good data is the key to performing good surveillance.”