March 2008: The Global Financial Crisis is in full swing. British bank Northern Rock has just been nationalised. American peer Bear Stearns will soon be bought out by JPMorgan. Lehman Brothers, and many other institutions, will collapse in a matter of months.
Blackberries ring unanswered in boardrooms as bailout talks continue. On the streets of London, black cabs sweep City workers off the kerb. Meanwhile, across schools and universities, students pore over Facebook (US:FB) – a relatively nascent platform – with few concerns about who can access their private content. As exam season approaches, some head to Waterstones to buy textbooks: quicker, and cheaper, than ordering online.
March 2018: Banks are grappling with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II), the culmination of a decade of reforms and sanctions designed to avoid another disaster. But as the financial services sector has claimed authorities’ full attention, another group of companies has grown, unfettered, into a near-monopoly. Apple’s (US:AAPL) iPhones dominate the smartphone market. Uber has undercut other taxi firms, offering cheaper rides at the touch of a button. Meanwhile, Amazon (US:AZN) can deliver almost anything to your door within hours.
It’s no surprise that 2018 is set to be a major year for regulation. Governments and market authorities around the world have seemingly acted simultaneously, recognising that one of their key priorities, consumer protection, has been endangered by the rise of ‘Big Tech’, and a lack of restrictions around the sharing of personal data. But, acting ‘simultaneously’ does not always mean ‘in unison’. Indeed, in some instances, the new rules around data – specifically within Mifid II, the Open Banking regime and the EU’s new general data protection regulation (GDPR) – appear to challenge one another.