Kevin Rodgers > Quotes

“But what about the spot brokers themselves? A few drifted to banks where they became traders or, more commonly, salesmen. Some simply retired or found work outside finance. Anecdotally, a number of them became London black-cab drivers. In around 2003 I met one who had done just that. I struck up a conversation with him as he took me home from the office; his name was Mickey. ‘I used to be a spot broker,’ he told me after he found out where I worked, ‘it was great.’ We reminisced for a while about the way the FX market had been, then, as we approached my street, he said, a little sadly, ‘But it had to end, we couldn’t beat the computers – they ate us all alive.’ We arrived outside my house where I got out and paid him. As he began to drive off, he slowed down and shouted back at me, ‘They ate us alive – and they’ll do it to everyone!’ With that, he turned the corner and drove out of sight.”
― Kevin Rodgers, Why Aren't They Shouting?: A Banker’s Tale of Change, Computers and Perpetual Crisis

“The reason is clear from the market share numbers. In the 1999 Euromoney poll, almost 48 per cent of market share was held by banks outside the top ten; by the 2006 poll, that number had halved to about 24 per cent. These banks did not have a business large enough to justify spending the money needed to automate. In fact, the collective market share decline of smaller banks masked a shift in behaviour that was even worse news for the career prospects of the traders who worked in them. Increasingly, FX giants like Deutsche would give these banks access to systems like Autobahn or the equivalent. Their salespeople would simply quote the Deutsche Bank (or Citibank, UBS or Barclays) rate to their customers with a small spread to offset the credit risk. No need for expensive traders. In effect, the smaller banks had shifted from ‘manufacturing’ FX rates to being distributors to clients with whom they had a strong relationship based on regional expertise or history. ‘You guys just sucked us dry,’ complained an old friend and adversary at the time – he was in his late thirties, from a smaller bank, and we were at his ‘leaving-the-industry’ drinks. ‘But,’ he added resignedly, with a slightly drunken grin, ‘I guess that’s just that old whore Capitalism for you.’ He became a maths teacher.”
― Kevin Rodgers, Why Aren't They Shouting?: A Banker’s Tale of Change, Computers and Perpetual Crisis

“If you think about it, that is surprising, since – these days at least – a bank is in essence nothing more than a lot of people and a collection of legal contracts represented on some very complex computer systems. Put simplistically, banks are just people and computers; all the rest is nice to have but not essential. If that statement surprises you, consider this: virtually all the money you get paid, save or spend is not physical in any sense whatsoever but is merely an abstract representation in ones and zeros on some bank’s computer system somewhere.”
― Kevin Rodgers, Why Aren't They Shouting?: A Banker’s Tale of Change, Computers and Perpetual Crisis

“It is an infallible rule of management that if you let the people who work for you think they’ve come up with an idea they will strain to make it happen much more willingly than if the idea is seen to be yours.”
― Kevin Rodgers, Why Aren't They Shouting?: A Banker’s Tale of Change, Computers and Perpetual Crisis