Outsourcing and the Restructuring of Financial Services

In the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the midst of the Alt-A mortgage crisis and the anticipation of next year's Option ARM crisis, the financial services industry continues to restructure. Still, there is much to be done and many of the functions that have been delivered from an internal or captive entity will be outsourced as the large financial institutions become ever more virtual and lean. From Todd Harrison at Minyanville comes this POV on the evolution towards outsourcing equity and general financial research:

The irony of the dot.com boom was that the very same companies that made Wall Street rich were doing so at a profound cost. The information superhighway paved the way to total transparency that allowed anyone with an instant message to be a click away from a shared network. 

There is certainly no shortage of information floating around the Street. The task at hand is to identify trusted sources that aren’t tied to particular agendas. My good friend Jeff Saut likes to say that where you stand is a function of where you sit. And if we look at the S&P and see that only 7% of all recommendations are currently skewed to the sell-side, it’s clear that alotta folks are sitting on the same side of the table. 

As a function of perceived agendas, and as research expenses can no longer be justified by investment banking revenue, an emerging trend of “outsourced information” should soon emerge as industry standard. In time, a customer will have the ability to “opt-in” to a pool of tailored information from around the world much the way they can currently craft a risk profile.