September 15th: Moody's upgrade of Ireland's rating to A2, also changes outlook to 'stable from positive'. It cites Brexit as the main downside, but says "Ireland's financial sector stands to benefit from Brexit, with a number of large financial firms announcing relocation plans of some operations to Ireland in the past several months".

Cedric Edmonds, director of Solidum Re, whose idea it was to use a blockchain and who was key in the design and the implementation of the ILSBlockchain and surrounding structural mechanics, says an alternative to Euroclear was required as it was becoming increasingly difficult to access Euroclear efficiently for smaller private placement note issues.

Leslie Kurshan, Leader of Innovative Client Solutions at insurance broker Marsh and Vicky Hartley, Boeing Capital Corporation's Senior Director of Customer Finance for Europe, will address the Financial Centres Summit, Dublin October 2017 on the Aircraft Finance Insurance Consortium Aircraft Non-Payment Insurance (ANPI) product introduced earlier this year.

Barclays has confirmed that Ireland will be the location for its post-Brexit EU banking plans having indicated that Dublin would be its chosen location, in the event of a so-called 'hard Brexit' as far back as January. Having recently installed a new CEO at its Irish bank, it described Dublin as a 'natural base' for its EU hub. Barclays Ireland's new chief Kevin Wall will be a speaker at the Financial Centres Summit on October 17th.

Toronto-headquartered TD Securities has confirmed plans to expand its Irish operations, including the establishment of a bond trading business subject to the necessary regulatory approval. TD Securities is a bond trading arm of the Toronto Dominion Bank, one of Canada's five pillar clearing banks

Bank of America has chosen Dublin as the post-Brexit location for its main EU legal entities with CEO and Chair Brian Moynihan describing Dublin as 'the natural location' for the bank.

Sir John is head of the UK's Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Cybersecurity, CSIT,at Queens, Belfast, and its academic Principal Investigator. A driving force behind the creation of the Northern Ireland Science Park, a former board member of the Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork he has also founded, and sold, two technology companies based on his research activities. With cybersecurity identified as the top technology area of concern by Ireland's FS industry in the recent Finance Dublin/Deloitte Research Report, Professor McCanny, will address cybersecurity and financial services themes. He was the only Northern Irish person knighted in the 2017 honours list. For more details: Financial Centres Summit 2017

The survey, amongst the 500 Companies included in the 2017 Finance Dublin Yearbook, carried out in collaboration with Deloitte also finds that overall employment increased amongst the companies surveyed last year by 4.6 per cent and that Regulation and Supervision issues are the most important concerns.

Citi's EMEA head Jim Cowles has revealed the US bank's Brexit plans with Dublin being chosen as one of a number of locations that will see additional headcount.

12th July 2017: Beazley plc is to establish its European insurance company in Dublin, growing its Irish presence which it had reduced in recent years. Beazley CEO Andrew Horton said 'we have long considered it [Dublin] an attractive potential location from which to develop our European business.' The move reverses the decision by Beazley to scale down its Dublin presence after it moved its head office from Dublin back to London in 2016.

June 28th 2017: In a sign of the growing importance of the economic relations between Ireland and China, Bank of China today opened its Dublin branch. Bank of China already has a presence in Ireland through its aircraft leasing operation, BOC Aviation (Ireland) Ltd, which will continue to operate as a separate business unit.

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.

To mark 30 Years of the IFSC, HSBC Securities Services' Paul Heffernan has traced HSBC's historic Irish connections going back to the late 1880s in Hong Kong, in this article in the 2017 Finance Dublin Yearbook

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.