The annual Yearbook, now in its 24th edition profiles 579 institutions overall, including 500 companies in the Irish IFS industry; It profiles 38 Market Infrastructures, Industry Representative bodies and public sector agencies, including IDA Ireland and the Departments of Finance and the Taoiseach, the Irish Stock Exchange and the Central Bank of Ireland as well as 41 professional services firms servicing IFS in Ireland.

May 25th 2017: A full report on The European Insurance Forum (EIF), the leading conference for the re/insurance sectors, held in Croke Park today will appear in the next issue of Finance Dublin, by Finance Dublin correspondent John Lyons who was at the event. First hosted in 1999, the 2017 event is under the umbrella of Insurance Ireland and 'is a major part of the efforts to promote Ireland as a location for insurance and reinsurance business', said Insurance Ireland head Kevin Thompson.

Writing in the Finance Dublin Yearbook 2017 Pat Lardner, the CEO of Irish Funds says: 'The main achievements and developments in the funds industry during the 30 year history of the IFSC have centred on the early adoption and implementation of various enabling EU Directives under UCITS and more recently AIFMD. The constant addition and evolution of the fund product offering and speed to market for asset managers distributing funds globally has been instrumental to the success of the industry in Ireland'.

At its 19th Annual Global Funds Conference today, Irish Funds, the representative body for the cross-border investment funds industry in Ireland, launched a Guidebook to Irish funds for Chinese Asset Managers in partnership with the Asset Management Association of China (AMAC).

JPMorgan will hire a 'significant' number of people for its custody and fund services business in Ireland in the next three years according to James Kenny, the US bank's head of investor services. The move gives further momentum to Ireland's funds industry which has been expected to benefit from funds companies looking to secure access to the EU single market in the wake of Brexit.

May 15th 2017: The Central Bank said "Ireland is the largest European centre for Exchanged Traded Funds (ETFs), which are the fastest growing type of investment fund globally. ETFs have experienced exponential growth since they were first established in 1990 with more than US$4tn in assets globally as at the end of April 2017. The Discussion Paper underpins an invitation to domestic and international Stakeholders to help inform global and European discussions on ETFs. It will contribute to the Central Bank's leading contribution to those discussions and to the Central Bank's role in maintaining stability and protecting consumers".

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England says the global financial system faces a "fork in the road", and Britain should avoid taking steps that would lead to its fragmentation. 'Brexit will be a litmus test of the future of international cooperation. The UK and the rest of the EU have exactly the same rules and the most highly developed frameworks of supervisory cooperation. Their capital and banking markets are already highly integrated. They have the potential to create the template for trade in financial services.'

The latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) rates Dublin as the most likely EU financial centre to become more significant. Overall Dublin is ranked 33rd out of the 88 cities included in the latest Global Financial Centres Index. Within Western Europe Dublin retains 8th position, after London, Zurich, Luxembourg, Geneva, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris. Dublin's best ever ranking was 13th out of 46 centres in 2008/2009

Finance Dublin is to hold The Financial Centres Summit, Dublin 2017 in conjunction with Financial Services Ireland, with Dublin Castle the venue for a world-leading Summit discussion and networking event on on October 17th 2017 with hundreds of c-suite decisionmakers addressing the theme of "Maximising the opportunities of Brexit". Over 100 panellists and speakers will focus on the major global issues, with Brexit at the heart of its plenary sessions. Concurrent streams on Regulatory and Tax, Fintech and Business Development, will feature, amongst many other discussions planned.

The Central Bank has recently published its model for carrying out Consumer Protection Risk Assessments and it states, unapologetically, that they 'will be intrusive in nature', writes John Lyons.

March 28th 2017: There are 159 nominations in deals with disclosed values of over EUR200 billion. There is an increase in the level of deals that combine Irish world-leading sectoral expertise - for instance securitisation and aircraft leasing, along with large global deals in multiple jurisdictions, from Spain to Australia to South Korea. Irrespective of deal size, innovation is evident across the board from this years smallest value disclosed deal (valued at $100,000) to global industry-changing transactions.

Gary Palmer CEO of the Irish Debt Securities Association provides an important overview of Ireland's securitisation industry. He also points to an interesting consequence of securitisation companies using trust structures for charitable purposes: "When the Trust has served its specified and limited purpose, it is wound up and when this happens there is usually a small residual left in the trust. With 1,400 such securitisation companies this provides an amount available for distribution and I'd personally prefer this distribution to go to local charities, where it wouldn't if an alternative type of trust was available".

The Baker McKenzie AI innovation committee is headquartered in Belfast and has members from Baker & McKenzie offices worldwide. They will address the question of how the firm may offer the legal services using self-learning AI software. One of the first opportunities explored is self-learning software for due diligence which could cut down time spent on DD tasks by 20 to 40%.