Z/Yen
Coordinates: 51°30′54.4″N 0°5′29.1″W / 51.515111°N 0.091417°W
 | |
| Industry | Consultancy, Think-tank |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | City of London |
Key people |
Ian Harris Mark Yeandle |
| Website | www.zyen.com |
Z/Yen is a commercial think-tank, consultancy and venture firm headquartered in the City of London. It works in the financial services, technology and voluntary sectors on a range of projects from research to performance review and strategic management. Founded in 1994 and with associates around the world, Z/Yen has developed collaborative projects such as the London Accord, the Global Financial Centres Index, the Global Intellectual Property Index for Taylor Wessing and Taskforce 2000 (the UK industry response to the Millennium Bug). The London Accord and GFCI are constituent programmes of Z/Yen’s Long Finance initiative, which seeks to answer the question “When would we know our financial system is working?”
Z/Yen conducts market research and intelligence. It publishes most of its research freely on its own website.[1]
Z/Yen has recently published a considerable amount of research on mutual distributed ledger (aka blockchain) technology and its effects on the financial services industry.
The firm has also been contracted by DasCoin, a hybrid cryptocurrency, to publish a white paper on their digital currency explaining its economic modeling and its unique, decentralized-centralized architecture.
History
Early Years (1994-2000)
In its formative years Z/Yen’s research and consulting included work for British Gas, the London Stock Exchange, the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA, now DSTL and QinetiQ) and Bloomberg, amongst others. Z/Yen played a major part in the founding of Taskforce 2000, the private sector initiative designed to alert people to the Millennium Bug. In 1996, Z/Yen established the £1.9M Financial Laboratory, an innovative joint venture between BZW (now Barclays Capital), Royal and Sun Alliance, The London Stock Exchange, DERA (now QinetiQ), City University, City University Business School, The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and Silicon Graphics. This project won a £750,000 DTI Foresight Challenge award later that year.
In the late nineties Z/Yen’s not-for-profit sector work became a major part of the business, with extended work for Cancer Research Campaign, BEN, The Children's Society and others, plus significant gains at British Heart Foundation and a major trade union. Other work included undertaking a major pan-European study into the market for OTC derivatives outsourcing.
Turn of the Millennium (2000-2005)
2001 saw the company receive significant recognition in the public arena, with a version of Z/Yen’s bourse game played at St James’ Palace as a part of a Marine Stewardship Council event; prizes were presented by HRH The Prince of Wales. Z/Yen launched PropheZy – a predictive Dynamic, Anomaly & Pattern Response (DAPR) system – in January 2003, receiving a £45,000 Smart Award from the Department of Trade and Industry. VizZy, a complementary visualisation system for PropheZy, was launched a year later.
Benchmarking became a significant section of Z/Yen’s work during this period, with record numbers of investment banks and brokerages participating in 2003.
Recent Years
In 2005 Z/Yen was appointed by the Institute of Fundraising, with partner Business in the Community, to run the enquiry line and information centre for the Payroll Giving Centre programme funded by the Home Office. Z/Yen created its flagship Global Financial Centres Index for the City of London Corporation in 2007 (bringing it in-house in 2010). 2007 also saw Z/Yen sell its investment banking cost-per-trade benchmarking unit to Aon, and launch the London Accord. This initiative, with the help of over 50 financial service sector contributors, looks to provide an open-source research resource on finance and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. A year later, Z/Yen launched a way of measuring the immeasurable, the Global Intellectual Property Index, for the legal firm Taylor Wessing.
Recent years have seen Z/Yen found the ExtZy game – creating a stockmarket from the internet – and pose the question, “When would we know our financial system is working?” though the Long Finance initiative. Research has included Index-linked carbon bonds, non-monetary trade and Confidence Accounting.[2]
Towards the end of 2011, Z/Yen decided to strengthen its international presence by establishing a Swiss office in Geneva.
Since Bitcoin's release in 2009, there has been a considerable amount of interest in the underlying distributed ledger technology (aka blockchain) which facilitates its transactions. Z/Yen's executive chairman Michael Mainelli, in association with Professor Mike Smith, has been working with mutual distributed ledgers, or MDLs, since the early 90's. Due to this expertise and recent interest in MDLs, Z/Yen shifted much of its research and resources towards this developing technology and community.
In late 2016, DasCoin, a new hybrid cryptocurrency, asked Z/Yen Group to organise a Long Finance seminar to introduce the a new cryptocurrency, ahead of its official launch on 14 January 2017 in Hong Kong. Entitled “DasCoin: A Hybrid Digital Store of Value System”, this seminar seeks to understand the intellectual thinking behind DasCoin, a hybrid solution which combines centralised and decentralised currency approaches. Z/Yen compared and contrasted DasCoin with other currency systems out there, from Bitcoin (obviously) to Ethereum, zcash, and others, on dimensions including governance, distribution criteria, authentication, the nature of the blockchain (public vs private) and the ecosystem surrounding the cryptocurrency.
Publications
Books
- Clean Business Cuisine: Now and Z/Yen - (2000) [3]
- Information Technology for the Not-for-profit Sector - ICSA Publishing (2001) [4]
- Expertise: Search and Deploy - (2003) [5]
- The Road To Long Finance: A Systems View Of The Credit Scrunch - (2009) (with Bob Giffords)[6]
- The Price of Fish - Nicholas Brealey Publishing (2011) [7]
Long Finance Reports
| Title | Author(s) | Year | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smart Ledgers & Collective Defined Contribution Pensions | Iain Clacher, Con Keating, and David McKee | 2018 | Long Finance (July 2018), 47 pages |
| Control Frameworks For Cryptocurrencies: An Initial Evaluation | Matthew Leitch and Aleksandar Matanovic | 2018 | Long Finance (July 2018), 91 pages. |
| Timestamping Smart Ledgers - Comparable, Universal, Traceable, Immune | Sam Carter | 2018 | Long Finance (June 2018), 55 pages. |
| Economic Simulation Of Cryptocurrencies | Michael Mainelli, Matthew Leitch, and Dionysios Demetis | 2018 | Journal of Financial Transformation, Number 47, Capco (April 2018), pages 89-100. |
| The Economic Impact Of Smart Ledgers On World Trade | Centre for Economics and Business Research | 2018 | The Worshipful Company of World Traders and Long Finance (April 2018). |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 23 (Chinese Edition) | Mark Yeandle | 2018 | Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute (March 2018), 45 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 23 | Mark Yeandle | 2018 | Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute (March 2018), 45 pages. |
| Liquidity Or Leakage - Plumbing Problems In Cryptocurrencies | Rodney Greene and Bob McDowall | 2018 | Long Finance (March 2018), 61 pages. |
| The Global Green Finance Index 1 | Greg Ford, Mireille Martini, Simon Mills, and Mike Wardle | 2018 | Z/Yen Group and Finance Watch (March 2018), 54 pages. |
| Get Smart About Scandals: Past Lessons For Future Finance | Professor Tim Connell and Bob McDowall | 2018 | Long Finance (March 2018), 102 pages. |
| The Quantum Countdown: Quantum Computing And The Future Of Smart Ledger Encryption | Maury Shenk | 2018 | Long Finance (February 2018), 61 pages. |
| Smart Ledger Geostamping - Steps Towards Interoperability & Standards | Michael Mainelli and James Pitcher | 2017 | Long Finance (December 2017), 20 pages. |
| Auditing Mutual Distributed Ledgers (aka Blockchains): A Foray Into Distributed Governance & Forensics | Michael Mainelli and Matthew Leitch | 2017 | Z/Yen Group, Long Finance, and DasCoin (November 2017), 37 pages. |
| A Primer On The Risk Structure And Contractual Accrual Rate Of DB Pensions | Iain Clacher, Con Keating, and Anna Tilba | 2017 | The University of Leeds, the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS), Newcastle University, and Long Finance (October 2017), 26 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 22 (Chinese Edition) | Mark Yeandle | 2017 | Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute (September 2017), 48 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 22 | Mark Yeandle | 2017 | Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute (September 2017), 48 pages. |
| Responsibility Without Power? The Governance Of Mutual Distributed Ledgers (aka Blockchains) | Simon Mills and Bob McDowall | 2017 | Z/Yen Group, Long Finance, and The Cardano Foundation (July 2017), 48 pages. |
| Security And Sustainability In Defined Benefit Pension Schemes: A Response To The Department Of Work And Pensions Consultation | Iain Clacher, Con Keating, and Andrew Slater | 2017 | The University of Leeds, the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS), and Long Finance (May 2017), 125 pages. |
| Financial Innovations & Sustainable Development - A Paper For The Business & Sustainable Development Commission | Michael Mainelli & Simon Mills | 2017 | Long Finance (Released for Publication January 2018), 50 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 21 | Mark Yeandle | 2017 | Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute (March 2017), 48 pages. |
| L'Innovation Financiere Au Service Du Climat: Les Obligations A Impact Environnemental | Abdeldjellil Bouzidi and Michael Mainelli | 2017 | Revue Banque (Février 2017), 128 pages. |
| From Slips To Smart Contracts: Intelligent Technology In The London Wholesale Insurance Market | Michael Mainelli and Bernard Manson | 2017 | Z/Yen Group, Long Finance, and The London Market Group (January 2017), 66 pages. |
| A Wholesale Insurance Executive's Guide To Smart Contracts | Michael Mainelli and Bernard Manson | 2017 | Z/Yen Group, Long Finance, and The London Market Group (January 2017), 16 pages. |
| Trends And Innovations In Financial Services | Mark Yeandle | 2017 | Z/Yen Group and the Toronto Financial Services Alliance. (January 2017), 34 pages. |
| The Missing Links In The Chains? Mutual Distributed Ledger (aka blockchain) Standards | Michael Mainelli and Simon Mills | 2016 | States of Alderney, PwC, Cardano Foundation,Long Finance (November 2016), 74 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 20 | Mark Yeandle | 2016 | Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute (September 2016), 56 pages. |
| Chain Reaction: How Blockchain Technology Might Transform Wholesale Insurance | Michael Mainelli and Bernard Manson | 2016 | PwC and Z/Yen Group, Long Finance (August 2016), 58 pages. |
| The Quiet Insurer: Mobility of the 'Other' Financial Service | Shirley Beglinger | 2016 | Long Finance, (July 2016), 40 pages. |
| The Impact And Potential Of Blockchain On The Securities Transaction Lifecycle | Michael Mainelli and Alistair Milne | 2016 | SWIFT Institute (May 2016), 80 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 19 | Mark Yeandle | 2016 | Z/Yen Group (April 2016). |
| Sharing Ledgers For Sharing Economies: An Exploration Of Mutual Distributed Ledgers (aka blockchain technology) | Michael Mainelli and Mike Smith | 2015 | Journal of Financial Perspectives, Volume 3, Number 3, EY Global Financial Services Institute (December 2015), 44 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 18 | Mark Yeandle | 2015 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority and Z/Yen Group (September 2015), 55 pages. |
| Uses And Abuses Of Discount Rates A Primer For The Wary | Dr Nick Goddard | 2015 | Long Finance (September 2015), 43 pages. |
| Promoting UK Cyber Prosperity: Public-Private Cyber-Catastrophe Reinsurance | Michael Mainelli, Chiara von Gunten and Mark Duff | 2015 | Z/Yen Group, Long Finance, co-sponsored by APM Group (July 2015), 50 pages. |
| Financing the Transition: Sustainable Infrastructure in Cities | Chiara von Gunten and Michael Mainelli | 2015 | Z/Yen Group and WWF, Long Finance (March 2015), 80 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 17 | Mark Yeandle and Michael Mainelli | 2015 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority and Z/Yen Group, (March 2015), 52 pages. |
| Chain Of A Lifetime: How Blockchain Technology Might Transform Personal Insurance | Michael Mainelli and Chiara von Gunten | 2014 | Z/Yen Group, Long Finance (December 2014), 51 pages. |
| Maritime Financial Centres | Mark Yeandle | 2014 | Z/Yen Group and Busan Metropolitan City (November 2014), 18 pages. |
| Opportunities for Standards in Investment & Asset Management | Michael Mainelli, Chiara von Gunten and Therese Kieve | 2014 | BSI and Z/Yen Group, Long Finance (October 2014), 20 pages. |
| Opportunities for Standards in Insurance | Michael Mainelli, Chiara von Gunten and Therese Kieve | 2014 | BSI and Z/Yen Group, Long Finance (October 2014), 20 pages. |
| Opportunities for Standard Development in Insurance and Investment & Asset Management | Chiara von Gunten, Therese Kieve and Michael Mainelli | 2014 | BSI and Long Finance, October 2014 |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 16 | Mark Yeandle and Michael Mainelli | 2014 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (September 2014), 52 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 15 | Mark Yeandle and Nick Danev | 2014 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (March 2014), 58 pages. |
| Backing Market Forces: How To Make Voluntary Standards Markets Work For Financial Services Regulation | Michael Mainelli and Chiara von Gunten | 2013 | BSI, Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and Long Finance, (November 2013), 72 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 14 | Mark Yeandle and Nick Danev | 2013 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (September 2013), 53 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 13 | Mark Yeandle and Chiara von Gunten | 2013 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (March 2013), 48 pages. |
| Keep Your Lid On: A Financial Analyst's View of the Cost and Valuation of DB Pension Provision | Con Keating | 2013 | Long Finance, Finance Shorts series, (March 2013), 31 pages |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 12 | Mark Yeandle and Nick Danev | 2012 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (September 2012), 48 pages. |
| Confidence Accounting: A Proposal | Ian Harris, Michael Mainelli and Jan-Peter Onstwedder | 2012 | Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment, Long Finance, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (July 2012), 66 pages. |
| Success of the Fittest: A Swift Survey of Shifts in Asset Management | Bob McDowall | 2012 | Long Finance, Financial Centre Futures (July 2012), 40 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 11 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne and Nick Danev | 2012 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (March 2012), 48 pages. |
| In Safe Hands? The Future of Financial Services | Gill Ringland, SAMI Institute | 2011 | Long Finance, Financial Centre Futures, (December 2011), 66 pages |
| Don't Stop Believing: The State and Future of UK Occupational Pensions | Con Keating | 2011 | Long Finance, Finance Shorts series, (November 2011), 56 pages |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 10 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne and Nick Danev | 2011 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (September 2011), 40 pages. |
| The Great Game: Clustering in Wholesale Financial Services | Dr Malcolm Cooper | 2011 | Long Finance, Financial Centre Futures, (June 2011), 50 pages |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 9 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne, Nick Danev | 2011 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (March 2011), 40 pages. |
| Finance, Biodiversity And Managed Ecosystems: Where's The Data? | Chiara von Gunten and Dr Malcolm Cooper | 2011 | Natural Environment Research Council, Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network and Z/Yen Group |
| Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Future of Pensions | Con Keating | 2010 | Long Finance, Finance Shorts series, (November 2010), 68 pages |
| Finance And Water: Where's The Data? | Leonor Fishman and Dr Malcolm Cooper | 2010 | Natural Environment Research Council, Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network and Z/Yen Group |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 8 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne, Nick Danev, Ben Morris and Richard Leeds | 2010 | Qatar Financial Centre Authority (October 2010), 40 pages. |
| Finance And Forestry: Where's The Data? | Stephanie Rochford and Dr Malcolm Cooper | 2010 | Natural Environment Research Council, Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network and Z/Yen Group |
| In Search Of The Eternal Coin: A Long Finance View Of History | Dr Malcolm Cooper | 2010 | Long Finance, Eternal Brevities series, (March 2010), 30 pages |
| Time To Stop Betting The House: Mortgages, Resilience and the Long Finance | David Steven | 2010 | Long Finance, Finance Shorts series, (March 2010), 30 pages |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 7 | Mark Yeandle, Michael Mainelli, Jeremy Horne, Nick Danev and Ben Morris | 2010 | City of London Corporation (March 2010), 38 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 6 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne, Nick Danev and Ben Morris | 2009 | City of London Corporation (September 2009), 30 pages. |
| The Road To Long Finance: A Systems View Of The Credit Scrunch | Michael Mainelli and Bob Giffords | 2009 | Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, ISBN 978-0-9561904-4-4, 62 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 5 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne, Nick Danev and Alexander Knapp | 2009 | City of London Corporation (March 2009), 52 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 4 | Mark Yeandle, Jeremy Horne and Nick Danev | 2008 | City of London Corporation (September 2008), 16 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 3 | Mark Yeandle, Alexander Knapp, Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris | 2008 | City of London Corporation (March 2008), 74 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 2 | Mark Yeandle, Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris | 2007 | City of London Corporation (September 2007), 78 pages. |
| The Global Financial Centres Index 1 | Michael Mainelli and Mark Yeandle | 2007 | City of London Corporation (March 2007), 64 pages. |
| The London Accord | Michael Mainelli and Jan-Peter Onstwedder (eds) | 2007 | Z/Yen Group and City of London Corporation, (September 2007), 80 pages |
Articles
A regularly updated list of articles can be found in the 'Knowledge' section of the Z/Yen Website.
Regular Indices
References
- ↑ Welcome to Z/Yen
- ↑ Confidence Accounting: a proposal
- ↑ http://www.zyen.com/index.php/knowledge/books/279.html - available free online
- ↑ http://www.zyen.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=281&Itemid=41 - available to purchase in all good book (/ebook) shops
- ↑ http://www.zyen.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=282&Itemid=41 - available free online
- ↑ http://www.zyen.com/index.php/knowledge/books/26.html - available free online
- ↑ http://www.zyen.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=743 - available to purchase in all good book (/ebook) shops
- ↑ GFCI
- ↑ Taylor Wessing Global IP Index 2009
- ↑ GGFI
External links
- Official website
- The Economist citation October 2009
- Financial Times citation September 2009(subscription required)