This is the conundrum facing Devin Wenig, managing director of Reuters Financial, as the internet throws up new competitors, and loosens the hold of the incumbents in financial services. The tendency is to portray the internet as removing all complexity. It is all very well to say 'the internet is an open network, content is content, anyone can do what Reuters does'. But it takes a lot of competency to deliver information and services such as ours. This is because the need for network security and reliability of service in financial markets overrides concerns about cost or flexibility.
All applications are mission critical, and it is a very demanding client base.
They can't afford to experiment with unproven technology - it has to work, and it has to fit the business need. On the face of it, Reuters Financial is ripe for disintermediation, standing as it does between 275 stock exchanges that generate information and 548,000 clients in the global financial markets and news media that use it. Reuters Information collates this data and transmits it over its private network, while RTS sells proprietary trading systems, optimised to use this information. But Reuters will still have a role as a trusted intermediary. Raw content will not be a primary competitive advantage.