Cisco aims to remedy G20's omission of IT

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 19 April 2009 09:15

Business IT - Technology

Complaining that the recent G20 summit's plans for reform of the global banking system make no mention of any role for IT, Cisco has moved to fill the gap with its own white paper.

The white paper "Using Technology to Accelerate G20 Plans for Strengthening Global Financial Supervision" says that the G20 summit "revealed a most welcome and promising consensus on the policies and governance structures required to reform the global banking system." However, it complains that: "throughout several hundred pages of publicly available reports produced to support the G20 Summit - from the EU, FSA, UN, US Treasury and G20 working groups - there is not a single mention of the role technology could play in supporting the new system."

In particular Cisco sees a key role for collaboration and collaboration technologies: not surprising perhaps since it recently identified this as a new multibillion dollar global market in which it intends to be a market leader. According to co-author, Angus Hislop, director of Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group "Several reports suggest the need for more resources or new skills but there is no discussion of the challenge of delivering the greater international collaboration which is at the heart of so many of the proposals."

The white paper says: "Almost all of the proposals will require more frequent and widespread collaboration among national, regional, and international supervisory agencies and their constituent bodies in order to accelerate decision-making...Collaborative technologies such as telepresence can be deployed relatively quickly if the sponsorship and budgets are put in place as part of the post-Summit action plan."

The white paper explores the potential for collaboration technologies to assist in implementation a number of the G20's proposals:

- Agreeing upon rules and mechanisms for the new "macro-prudential" approach to supervision of the finance sector—both at the EU and global levels;

- Expanding the number of supervisory colleges for cross-border financial institutions and the frequency of meetings—both at the EU and global levels;

- Enhancing the process for management of crises at cross-border financial institutions, or for systemic problems;
- Agreeing upon new rules on capital adequacy, liquidity management, and counter-cyclical capital buffers, and upon improved regulatory oversight of hedge funds/private equity, credit rating agencies, and compensation policies;

- Enhancing collaboration among national supervisory agencies and their staff assigned to increasingly powerful international bodies
Better application of technology can play a role both in supporting the new macro-prudential approach through advanced data-sharing networks, and in enhancing collaboration through improved voice- and videoconferencing.