Our History

As they say, the rest is history, but for now it is the future...

• In March, Long Finance and Financial Centre Futures launches the GFCI 25 and publishes the report Financial Centres Likely To Become More Significant.

• Long Finance's Distributed Futures publishes To Be, To Have, To Know: Smart Ledgers & Identity Authentication; a report that provides alternative models for practical identity management and authentication, and suggests considerations for policy makers, regulators, businesses, and individuals, both for the present and looking forward.

• In January, Z/Yen takes over management of the Financial Services Club; the number ONE global networking group for executives in technology and financial services. This organisation provides topical events, innovative commentary, and news services beneath a bull-and-bear symbol.

• And in December we release All Eyes on Astana; an update on the progress being made in the Astana International Finance Centre (AIFC) in the realm of international financial competitiveness.

• In October we release Focus on Busan; update on the progress being made in the Busan International Finance Center (BIFC).

• GFCI 23 & GFCI 24 are launched in March and September respectively with a lot of attention.

• On 14 March, the Global Green Finance Index (GGFI) is launched in Brussels. The GGFI ranks the world’s financial centres according to perceptions of the quality and depth of their green finance offerings. It's second edition is published in September.

• Long Finance's Distributed Futures publishes 8 reports and...

...in conjunction with Financial Centre Futures launches a study on developing a Smart Jurisdictions Index. Such an index aims to help investors, governments, and regulators track how attuned financial centres are to attracting new lines of business such as fintech or new financial products. This evolves into the Smart Centres Index.

• Long Finance's Eternal Coin's “Economic Simulation And Control Of Cryptocurrencies” project develops the technical framework for a simulator, supported by two workshops and the publication of a report.

• Financial Centre Futures - The China Financial Centres Index 10, produced in partnership with the China Development Institute is launched.

• Z/Yen is awarded the Diamond Quality Mark as a result of the staff’s continued contribution to charity through payroll giving.

• Cardano Foundation selects Long Finance's Distributed Futures practice as its partner for a research programme into blockchain applications.

• Distributed Futures, an open source research programme for Smart Ledgers and new technologies, publishes two reports:

Responsibility Without Power? The Governance Of Mutual Distributed Ledgers (aka Blockchains)

Smart Ledger Geostamping - Steps Towards Interoperability & Standards

• Sponsored by DasCoin, the Eternal Coin programme, in its effort to enable a global discussion on the nature of money and the concept of value, publishes a report on Auditing Mutual Distributed Ledgers (aka Blockchains): A Foray Into Distributed Governance & Forensics.

• Long Finance publishes five further reports:

A Primer On The Risk Structure And Contractual Accrual Rate Of DB Pensions

Security And Sustainability In Defined Benefit Pension Schemes: A Response To The Department Of Work And Pensions Consultation

Financial Innovations & Sustainable Development - A Paper For The Business & Sustainable Development Commission

From Slips To Smart Contracts: Intelligent Technology In The London Wholesale Insurance Market

A Wholesale Insurance Executive's Guide To Smart Contracts

• Financial Centre Futures - The Global Financial Centres Index 21 and The Global Financial Centres Index 22 is published in March and September respectively, along with the following special report:

Trends And Innovations In Financial Services

• Linda Cook joins the Z/Yen Group Board of Directors and Mark Yeandle is appointed Director of Z/Yen Partners.

• Z/Yen is awarded the Platinum Quality Mark as a result of the staff’s continued contribution to charity through payroll giving.

• Z/Yen finds a new home at 41 Lothbury, London, EC2R 7HG.
• Having launched the Global Financial Centres Index in 2007, Z/Yen publishes its 20th edition.

• Long Finance publishes three extensive reports:

The Missing Links In The Chains? Mutual Distributed Ledger (aka blockchain) Standards

Chain Reaction: How Blockchain Technology Might Transform Wholesale Insurance

The Quiet Insurer: Mobility of the 'Other' Financial Service

• Michael Mainelli co-authors with Abdeldjellil Bouzidi his first book in French.

• Long Finance publishes four reports that gain significant attention:

Uses And Abuses Of Discount Rates A Primer For The Wary

Promoting UK Cyber Prosperity: Public-Private Cyber-Catastrophe Reinsurance

Financing the Transition: Sustainable Infrastructure in Cities

Comparative Regulatory Environments - A Comparison Of Financial Services Regulation In Eight Jurisdictions

• The InterChainZ project develops several implementations of mutual distributed ledgers (aka blockchain technology) and publishes a video.
• Z/Yen launches Distributed Futures, a senior forum dedicated to technology and disruption, for subjects such as mutual distributed ledgers (aka blockchain technology) and artificial intelligence.

• Z/Yen’s maritime experience sails forth in a publication on “Maritime Financial Centres”.

• Z/Yen’s 1998 work on secure case management systems for sensitive situations now recognised as mutual distributed ledgers (aka blockchain technology) and helps create this report, “Chain Of A Lifetime: How Blockchain Technology Might Transform Personal Insurance”.

• In February 2014, “City Walks: Finance At Your Feet” was published on iBooks. You can download (free) via iBooks or iTunes by searching for “books history europe city of london” or here as a pdf.

• Z/Yen publishes "Backing Market Forces: How to Make Voluntary Standards Markets Work for Financial Services Regulation" following a joint research project conducted with BSI and the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.

• Michael Mainelli is elected Alderman of Broad Street Ward.
• Clean Business Cuisine published on Kindle.

• Z/Yen continues its CommunityZ development work with the Church of England, with over 4,000 parishes submitting some or all of their data using the on-line system built by Z/Yen and the roll-out continuing to a further 10 dioceses in 2013.
• The Long Finance, CISI and ACCA sponsored proposal on Confidence Accounting is published, with a number of events held during a four month consultation period. The proposal receives press coverage in The Financial Times.
• The Long Finance Spring and Autumn Conferences are hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and University College London respectively, with other Long Finance events taking place throughout the year.
• Z/Yen is awarded the Platinum Quality Mark as a result of the staff’s continued contribution to charity through payroll giving.

• The Price of Fish is awarded the Gold Medal in the Finance, Investment and Economics category of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards.
• Z/Yen establishes its Swiss office in Geneva, headed up by Chiara von Gunten.

• Ian Harris appears on SKY News to discuss the Fiscal Cliff

• Z/Yen completes a major research study for the City of London Corporation on non-monetary trade – Capacity Trade and Credit: Emerging Architectures for Commerce and Money.
• Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris launch their third book, The Price of Fish, published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, with a book signing at Gresham College.

• Z/Yen says goodbye to St Helen’s Place and is now happily installed at 90 Basinghall Street (which has an illustrious past, including once housing the Bank of New Zealand and previously being the home of Gresham College).
• Z/Yen completes successful Technology Strategy Board project with the London Film Museum using PropheZy to help financial investors navigate large datasets using Avatars.
• Long Finance publishes Con Keating’s follow-on report “Don’t Stop Believing: The State and Future of UK Occupational Pensions” and Dr Malcolm Cooper’s “The Great Game: Clustering in Wholesale Financial Services”.

• The Long Finance Spring Conference is hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in March and HSBC host the Long Finance Autumn Conference in November. The London Accord now provides over 240 investment research reports shared by 45 organisations.
• Ian Harris is appointed Chairman of the BCS Ethics Group.
• The Farsight Award, a category of the Sustainable City Awards supported by Z/Yen, Gresham College, USS and the London Accord, is awarded to Bank Sarasin for their report The World in a Dilemma between Prosperity and Resource Protection at the annual ceremony at Mansion House.

• Z/Yen, Willis, CISI and Gresham College host the Long Finance: Enduring Value conference where speakers include Brian Eno and Stewart Brand, while 350 people sing along with Ian Harris about financial reform.
• Z/Yen launches its first two minute feature film Ultrahedge™ - a financial Armageddon thriller.
• There are now over 130 reports on the London Accord and 2010 has seen two new contributors coming on board (UniCredit Group and Standard & Poor's).

• Long Finance publishes three reports:

Time To Stop Betting The House: Mortgages, Resilience and the Long Finance

In Search Of The Eternal Coin: A Long Finance View Of History

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Future of Pensions

• The Long Finance Autumn conference, Sustainability: Root Problems in Finance, is held at Guildhall, with Professor Avinash Persaud delivering the key-note address to an audience of 200.

• Z/Yen launches the ExtZy Big Giva, introducing the option for ExtZy players to convert their Zoints into donations to their UK charity of choice.
• Michael Mainelli takes on Chairmanship of The Real Time Club 2009/2010.
• The Long Finance initiative launches its first publication - Michael Mainelli and Bob Gifford's "The Road To Long Finance: A Systems View of the Credit Scrunch".

• Index-linked carbon bonds are proposed at the World Bank Government Borrowers' Forum in Ljubljana as an incentive to governments to meet their reduced emission targets.
• The Carbon Calculator goes live on the London Accord website, allowing anyone to explore scenarios giving the impact of a carbon price on business costs.

• Z/Yen launches ExtZy - the game that turns the entire internet into a stockmarket.

• Z/Yen creates and launches a way of measuring the immeasurable, the Global Intellectual Property Index, for the legal firm Taylor Wessing, and Taylor Wessing wins The Law Society's 2008 "Excellence in Marketing and Business Development" award.
• Z/Yen warns of the perils in Icelandic bank on 8 March 2008.
• Z/Yen first supports National Ethical Investment Week (NEIW), 18 to 24 May 2008.

• Z/Yen receives gold award for charitable giving in the workplace.

• Z/Yen selected as finalists for the Working Families Innovation Award.
• Z/Yen moved into its new, larger office at the end of September, but the address is still 5-7 St Helens Place!
• Michael Mainelli chairs first Farsight Award won by Citigroup.

• Z/Yen incubates Sirius Minerals plc, now capitalised at over £300 million.
• Z/Yen produces The Competitive Position of London as a Global Financial Centre and Anti-Money Laundering Requirements: Costs, Benefits and Perceptions, both published by the Corporation of London.
• Michael Mainelli appointed non-executive director of United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).
• Charityshare and Z/Yen jointly win a Highly Commended Award in the Technology category at the 2005 Charity Awards.

• Z/Yen appointed by the Institute of Fundraising in partnership with Business in the Community to act as enquiry line and information centre for the Payroll Giving Centre programme. The programme is funded by the Home Office.
• Michael Mainelli appointed to three-year post as Professor of Commerce at Gresham College.

• Z/Yen helps NSPCC and The Children's Society to launch co-sourcing venture "Charityshare".

• Michael Mainelli honoured with a British Computer Society Individual Excellence Award, 2004/2005 Medallist - IT Director of the Year (SME).

• Z/Yen Financial Services benchmarking has grown so much we establish a permanent Far East presence in Singapore.
• Z/Yen achieves 40% market share of UK Voluntary Sector.
• Michael Mainelli takes on Chairmanship of the Broad Street Ward Club 2004/2005.
• Z/Yen launches VizZy, a complementary visualisation system for PropheZy.

• Z/Yen is pleased to launch and publish The London Accord.

• Z/Yen creates and launches the Global Financial Centres Index for the City of London Corporation.
• Z/Yen sells its investment banking cost-per-trade benchmarking subsidiary to Aon.
• Ian Harris chairs the National Payroll Giving Awards judging panel.

• Z/Yen launches PropheZy in January. Two clients use PropheZy in first two months. Department of Trade and Industry bestows Smart Award of £45,000 on Z/Yen for PropheZy.

• A record number investment banks and brokerages participate in a record number of global studies and benchmarks. Z/Yen conducts major liquidity analysis for a large stock exchange and extensive customer study for a clearing house.
• The US Journal of Business Strategy serialises Clean Business Cuisine: Now and Z/Yen.
• Z/Yen works with Prime Minister's Strategy Unit on sustainable fishing using risk/reward.
• Z/Yen's charity insurance benchmark helps charities tackle rapidly rising costs.

• Z/Yen acquires Aspect Consulting from Kaizo and gains a new director, Stephen Martin, to head up the Intelligence Practice.

• Mark Yeandle joins to head up SpecialiZm, Z/Yen's expert resourcing division.
• Project Auguri, led by Alan Helmore-Simpson, begins research into statistical prediction leading to PropheZy.

• ICSA Publishing brings out Z/Yen’s Information Technology for the Not-for-Profit Sector as well as a Best Practice Guide, Information Technology Governance in the Not-for-Profit Sector.

• Z/Yen takes assignment-related stakes in HTTP Technology Inc and CityAxis Limited. HTTP’s Medicsight system for cancer detection, built with Z/Yen assistance, goes into trials. Z/Yen sells its stake in Milet to an MBO.
• Competitive cost comparison work for investment banks extends to four studies in the year involving over 23 banks across Europe.
• Marine Stewardship Council yields two public relations coups: a version of the Z/Yen bourse game at St James’ Palace with prizes presented by HRH The Prince of Wales plus coverage of our “fishy maths” work in the Economist.
• Z/Yen wins a cricket match for the first time in its history, beating The Children’s Society by a short square leg.

• Jeremy Smith, a former Managing Director with Deutsche Bank, joins Z/Yen as the director to head up the Financial Services Practice.
• Z/Yen conducts the first of what become many Competitive Cost Comparison studies for investment banks with 10 participants.
• Z/Yen establishes the multi-cultural and children’s publishing firm, Milet and takes assignment-related stakes in Zaroo.com plc.
• Z/Yen’s long-awaited humorous risk/reward management novel, Clean Business Cuisine: Now and Z/Yen, is published by Milet. The novel is acclaimed Sunday Times “Book of the Week” in July.

• Z/Yen’s first patent submission is cleared for the game of FatCat.
• Z/Yen bids adieu to an old friend whose work is done, Taskforce 2000, a few months in to the year 2000.

• Z/Yen’s joint establishment in 1996 of Taskforce 2000 with the Ministry of Defence and Computing Services & Software Association comes to a successful end, thanked profusely by the financial services sector.

• Z/Yen and other COMAX founder shareholders realise gains from COMAX’s sale to Amey plc.
• Z/Yen undertakes a major study across Europe into the market for OTC derivatives outsourcing.
• Z/Yen hosts a new start-up in Jaffe Associates Limited, a marketing consultancy specialising in professional services. Several joint ventures begin immediately.
• Not-for-profit sector work goes from strength to strength, with extended work with Cancer Research Campaign, BEN, The Children’s Society and others, plus significant gains at British Heart Foundation and UNISON.

• Z/Yen is commissioned to work on two audacious projects with The Children’s Society, project managing a short, sharp rollout of Windows in months rather than years, and commencing work on the much quoted “evidence of worth” measurement initiative for projects and units known as MART.
• In the technology arena, Z/Yen does some pioneering work on the implications of quantum computing and moves to providing its own web server support rather than just Compuserve.
• Z/Yen begins the first of the popular Boating Bourse games on S.B. Lady Daphne. This original Technology Bourse is followed over the years by the Legal Bourse, Facilities Management Bourse, Cashing in on Catches Bourse (environmental) and Bull-Bear Biotech Bourse.

• Z/Yen cranks up the effort to support Taskforce 2000. The press makes much of the fact that this shoestring organisation punches above the weight of the government’s heavily funded Action 2000. The press seems oblivious to the fact that Taskforce’s resourcing is Z/Yen people’s part-time jobs!

• Z/Yen continues to assist and participate in the Management and Employee Buy Out of DERA’s Support Services Division, renamed COMAX Secure Business Services.

• Z/Yen pays off founding loan, restructuring the remaining (much reduced) burden onto Messrs Harris and Mainelli.
• Z/Yen’s client Ideal Hardware plc wins a prestigious human resources award for the HR strategy work it is doing with Z/Yen, a few days after the assignment begins (for the ideas in the proposal!). Mercifully, Ideal also wins the award again the following year for seeing the ideas through.
• Z/Yen undertakes several prestigious IT strategy assignments for charities, including Barnardo’s, WRVS and The Children’s Society.
• Helping to put in context the dangers of beef-on-the-bone and BSE, our team alert the public to the far-more-deadly risks of Christmas which is picked up by The Telegraph.
• Z/Yen begins its series of famous boating trips on S.B. Lady Daphne.

• Z/Yen establishes 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. The Financial Laboratory wins a £750,000 DTI Foresight Challenge award later that year.

• Z/Yen conducts a major study, jointly with DERA, on central counterparty risk for the London Stock Exchange. Z/Yen works with Bloomberg in New York on its financial systems strategy.
• The Edinburgh office opens under the stewardship of Dr Kevin Parker.
• With co-sponsors as the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Trade & Industry, the Cofederation of British Industry (CBI), and the Computing Services and Software Association (CSSA), working with Robin Guenier Z/Yen plays a major part in founding and hosting Taskforce 2000, a private sector initiative to alert people to the Millennium Bug.

• Z/Yen wins a major assignment to determine the Corporate Development Plan for the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA, now QinetiQ). The plan wins Ministry of Defence and HM Treasury approval and leads to the privatisation of DERA’s Support Services Division.
• The team undertake a large assignment for British Gas establishing risk/reward contract management for a few hundred million chunk of IT outsourcing with particular attention paid to the legacy systems.
• Z/Yen begins work with a leading computer games company, Argonaut, which then really takes off.
• Z/Yen begins a long-term relationship with the European Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Association establishing a risk-adjusted rate of return for a viable industry which is still regularly updated.
• Z/Yen undertakes a comprehensive strategic planning exercise with Broadcasting Support Services leading on to help with Science Line and the BBC Radio Helpline.
• In September, Z/Yen moves from Gresham Street to St Helen's Place. Despite the fact that Z/Yen employs only five men and one woman, romance blossoms and two of the original team of six marry!

• Z/Yen begins operations with five working directors and one practice manager. Two of the founding directors, Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris, remain on the board today.

• Z/Yen’s first clients are ICS (a distribution company) and, in our first competitive tender, National AIDs Helpline run by Broadcasting Support Services (a charity providing care-based call centres and fulfilment) who remained a client for many years. Z/Yen boasts a 100% success rate in competitive tenders for many months.
• The original offices were in Gresham Street, thanks to Nick Pickering of Rochester. We couldn’t get any property company to let premises to a start up, but “Uncle” Nick kindly took the space and sub-let to us.