Fighting talk from State Street

IN PUBLIC STATEMENTS, if not always in private, bankers are normally quite a polite bunch. So what does Tom McCrossan of State Street put on his breakfast cereal?

Whatever it is, he is highly critical about his rivals' outsourcing ventures. "I think we can be pretty confident in suggesting that many of the outsourcing deals have been lacklustre in their success," says the State Street executive vice-president. "I'm not saying anything out of turn here. I think the market perception is one of problems and troubling situations that have occurred."

In the rarified world of investor services - where just three banks dominate - this is a stinging attack. Nor does McCrossan stop here. He says that it is precisely the problems for competitors such as Bank of New York and JPMorgan that are blocking the market as a whole. "Their lack of success has held the market back from diving into this new outsourcing...