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Learning from pondlife and fishermen: towards a modular financial services industry

Aidan Walsh (EMEIA Financial Services Office, Ernst & Young, Dublin, Ireland)

Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance

ISSN: 1358-1988

Article publication date: 15 November 2011

499

Abstract

Purpose

Haldane has suggested that modularity would add sustainability to the financial system. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a route by which such modularity might be achieved.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper attempts to explore the micro‐foundations of regulatory regimes as rule bound orders and demonstrate that externally imposed rules may not be absolutely necessary to constrain the behaviour of individuals or organisations. Voluntarily self‐agreed rules may allow for greater communication and monitoring among the participants in a group. This in turn can result in greater sustainability. The paper uses examples from the work of Ostrom on sustainable common‐pool resources to support this view. Examples are also given from the financial services industry.

Findings

The paper suggests that non‐legislative, informal rules of behaviour may be a useful source of constraining unsustainable behaviour in the financial services industry. In turn these self‐enforcing rule‐bound regimes may facilitate one feature of sustainable systems – modularity.

Practical implications

The paper suggests that stakeholders in financial systems may find it useful, on a bottom‐up basis, to facilitate the creation of groups of financial institutions that would create and then adhere to self‐enforcing rules that could result in sustainable practices.

Originality/value

The originality of the paper is on the focus on self‐created and self‐enforced rule‐following and on using the work of Ostrom in a financial services setting.

Keywords

Citation

Walsh, A. (2011), "Learning from pondlife and fishermen: towards a modular financial services industry", Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 312-322. https://doi.org/10.1108/13581981111182929

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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