As 2020 dawned, little did anyone contemplating the year ahead imagine that a classic 'black swan' in the form of Covid-19 lay in wait, and its consequences for markets would be evident by the end of the first quarter. With the 2020 transition year beginning, Brexit seemed the most strategic of issues for the Irish international financial services industry, and in that vein, the state's post Brexit financial services strategy for IFS was detailed by Kieran Donoghue, Global Head of International Financial Services, Strategy and Public Policy, IDA Ireland.
An early assessment of the impact of the pandemic in the funds industry was provided by Tadhg Young, Head of State Street Ireland, with a bird's eye view of the development of the crisis in securities markets in the April issue of Finance Dublin. By mid year, it was becoming possible to provide in depth appraisals of the impacts, such as in this interview with Eoin Mac Manus, Managing Partner of EY Financial Services covering a broad range of financial services topics.

RBC Investor services has also been relating its markets experiences in 2020, for example in the area of securities lending. In this interview, in November 2020, RBC's Don D’Eramo, Global Head of Securities Finance at RBC Investor & Treasury Services spoke about the securities lending industry 's robust response to the crisis, as volatility soared in the early months, and remained high. There were no fail trades or losses, despite the appearance of spikes in underlying sectors such as aviation and tourism, he said. For other articles from RBC Investor Services, including Ireland MD Padraig Kenny's article 'The era of reactive change is over' click here.

In an article in the 2020 Yearbook Maoliosa O'Caoimh, country head of Northern Trust, referenced research that reflects Northern Trusts's continued focus this year on the evolution of pressures on asset managers in a negative interest rate environment and associated downward pressures on margins, which have remained relentless in 2020, as despite growth in assets, fees have lagged behind. Outsourcing, and the many business wins by Irish service providers of new asset management operations has been a feature of 2020, and this analysis illustrates the thinking behind such business wins. Accenture in Ireland’s Gary Clare and Adam Kelly provided an overview of the strategic processes now being put in place by some of the world’s leading asset managers in this article in the Yearbook, which provides further insight into the new outsourcing processes described by Northern Trust's Maoliosa O'Caoimh.
ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) criteria and concerns have steadily grown in importance as both principals and customers of all financial services products assign steadily increasing importance to these issues in their actions and asset allocation decisions. In the Yearbook, Mazars' Ireland Managing Partner Mark Kennedy, and Mazars' global lead partner responsible for ESG Leila Kamdem-Fotso, provided an overview of the issues.