Z/Yen

Z/Yen is a commercial think-tank, consultancy and venture firm headquartered in the City of London. It works in the financial services, technology and voluntary sectors on research, performance review and strategic management. Founded in 1994, Z/Yen has developed the London Accord, the Global Financial Centres Index, the Global Intellectual Property Index for Taylor Wessing and Taskforce 2000 (the UK industry response to the Millennium Bug).[1]

Z/Yen Group
IndustryConsultancy, Think-tank
Founded1994 (1994)
HeadquartersCity of London
Key people
Michael Mainelli

Ian Harris

Mark Yeandle
Websitewww.zyen.com

Z/Yen conducts market research and intelligence. It publishes most of its research freely on its own website. Z/Yen is split into 2 parts; Long Finance for Pro bono work and The Financial Services Club (FSC) which provides networking dinners and events for city professionals. Z/Yen's executive chairman Michael Mainelli, in association with Michael F Smith, has been working with mutual distributed ledgers, or MDLs, since the early 90s. Due to this expertise and recent interest in MDLs, Z/Yen shifted much of its research and resources towards this developing technology and community.

History

In its formative years Z/Yen’s research and consulting included work for British Gas, the London Stock Exchange, the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA, now DSTL and QinetiQ) and Bloomberg, amongst others. Z/Yen played a major part in the founding of Taskforce 2000, the private sector initiative designed to alert people to the Millennium Bug.

In 1996, Z/Yen established the £1.9M Financial Laboratory, a joint venture between BZW, Royal and Sun Alliance, The London Stock Exchange, DERA, City University, City University Business School, The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and Silicon Graphics. The project won a £750,000 DTI Foresight Challenge award later that year.[2]

In the late 1990s, Z/Yen’s not-for-profit sector work became a major part of the business, with work for Cancer Research Campaign, BEN, and The Children's Society plus significant gains at British Heart Foundation and a major trade union. Other work included undertaking a major pan-European study into the market for OTC derivatives outsourcing.

In 2001 the company gained recognition when a version of its bourse game was played at St James’ Palace as a part of a Marine Stewardship Council event.

In January 2003 Z/Yen launched PropheZy – a predictive Dynamic, Anomaly & Pattern Response (DAPR) system, receiving a £45,000 Smart Award from the Department of Trade and Industry. VizZy, a complementary visualisation system for PropheZy, was launched a year later. In 2005 Z/Yen was appointed by the Institute of Fundraising, with partner Business in the Community, to run the enquiry line and information centre for the Payroll Giving Centre programme funded by the Home Office.

In 2007 Z/Yen created its Global Financial Centres Index for the City of London Corporation, sold its investment banking cost-per-trade benchmarking unit to Aon, and launched the London Accord, which provides an open-source research resource on finance and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

In 2008 Z/Yen launched the Global Intellectual Property Index for the legal firm Taylor Wessing. Z/Yen founded the ExtZy game – creating a stockmarket from the internet through the Long Finance initiative. Research has included carbon bonds, non-monetary trade and Confidence Accounting.[3]

Towards the end of 2011, Z/Yen established a Swiss office in Geneva. Mainelli and Harris also launched their third book, The Price of Fish, published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

In 2012 Z/Yen was awarded the Platinum Quality Mark as a result of the staff’s continued contribution to charity through payroll giving. The Price of Fish was awarded the Gold Medal in the Finance, Investment and Economics category of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards.[4]

In February 2014, "City Walks: Finance At Your Feet” was published on iBooks. In 2015, The InterChainZ project developed several implementations of mutual distributed ledgers and launched Distributed Futures, a forum dedicated to technology and disruption.

In 2017, Financial Centre Futures - The Global Financial Centres Index 21 and The Global Financial Centres Index 22 were published in March and September respectively, along with the special report: Trends And Innovations In Financial Services. On 14 March 2018, the Global Green Finance Index (GGFI) was launched in Brussels. The GGFI ranks the world’s financial centres according to perceptions of the quality and depth of their green finance offerings.

Long Finance's Eternal Coin's “Economic Simulation And Control Of Cryptocurrencies” project develops the technical framework for a simulator, supported by two workshops and the publication of a report. Financial Centre Futures - The Global Financial Centres Index 23 and The Global Financial Centres Index 24 were published in March and September respectively, along with the China Financial Centres Index 10.

Regular indices

Publications

Books
  • Clean Business Cuisine: Now and Z/Yen - (2000) [7]
  • Information Technology for the Not-for-profit Sector - ICSA Publishing (2001) [8]
  • Expertise: Search and Deploy - (2003) [9]
  • The Road To Long Finance: A Systems View Of The Credit Scrunch - (2009) (with Bob Giffords)[10]
  • The Price of Fish - Nicholas Brealey Publishing (2011) [11]
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References
  1. "Professor Michael Mainelli". Banking Tech Awards/FinTech Futures.
  2. ""Military minds train on financial targets"". Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE).
  3. Confidence Accounting: a proposal
  4. "2012 MEDALISTS". Independent Publisher Book Awards.
  5. Taylor Wessing Global IP Index 2009
  6. GGFI
  7. https://www.zyen.com/publications/books/clean-business-cuisine/l
  8. https://www.zyen.com/publications/books/it-non-profit-sector/
  9. https://www.zyen.com/media/documents/SearchAndDeploy.pdf
  10. https://www.zyen.com/media/documents/Road_to_Long_Finance.pdf
  11. https://www.zyen.com/publications/books/price-fish/
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