Introduction – The long, long road ahead

Wholesale financial services firms have made great play of their internet ventures in the last year, seeking to present themselves both as being internet-enabled and as pioneers in reshaping financial markets. Yet in reality few firms have done any more than take their traditional businesses and put them online. The true capacity of the internet to transform financial market structures has yet to be unleashed, although pure trading is changing fast. Maybe some of the self-styled pioneers want to hold this transforming power in check. They won't succeed for long, reports Antony Currie