Dear Members,
Autumn (or the Fall) as known across the Atlantic is my favourite time of the year with the stark contrast of colours, seasonal festivals across many of our member countries and the final charge towards Christmas and year end.
First up is Halloween, which is generating much excitement from my youngest son, although I often wonder if it’s the euphoria from acting as some terrifying movie character or simply the caffeine and sugar rush from all the sweets and confectionary!
Hopefully for you all, as members, you will have had more on the treat department from not only the LMA but from all your day-to-day business lines.
Just arriving back from Paris, I was extremely proud at the execution and delivery of our first European Loan Conference. Meeting members from the United States, Singapore, and even India – well beyond our EMEA core – showed the draw of these flagship events and highlighted the strong representation of our European members. Again, the LMA Events team deserve a huge thanks!
This followed the theme of Further Together we launched at London, innovated by hosting at an incredible venue – Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. Our content reflected key themes from these markets – more of this later.
Our annual commodities seminar also received many platitudes, and we all appreciate the effort and contribution of great speakers. Read more here.
Following the AGM, we also reached out to all our members with the renewal process for 2025 introducing a refresh of our categories, a further development of our member benefits (including a free version of LMA.Automate), and 2025 fees. To explore more about the membership categories please visit the website. For some members we have had to increase the annual subscription but I trust you will see the benefit looking at what we deliver and the increasing work we are doing in these markets.
I hope you are not feeling “spammed” by the LMA publications put out over the month – there truly is something for everything – as we delivered our main pieces; Horizons, and Challenging the Timeline – but also rolled out thematic blogs covering our annual conference. We plan to do this more and I would welcome your ideas and thoughts around what we might not be covering, what would you like to hear.
2024 has seen already a sea change in the LMA brand and tone. Reflecting your ask for the LMA to be a thought leader and to represent your voice we are speaking more, we are communicating more, but more importantly we are leading and driving more.
Our metrics reflect this evolution, with notable increases in online engagement, followers, and channel penetration—and most importantly, stronger, impactful outputs.
Over the last month our seniors have been interviewed by the main press – Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Structured Credit Investor, and Global Capital (sorry for those I have excluded) – and I feel this is because we have clearly something to say and a strong relevant voice across our markets.
You will see more of this!
I was also privileged to be invited to attend the recent FCA Capital Markets conference, and it was with a sense of pride I heard a CEO of a European financial institution praise the work of the LMA – a further demonstration of the success of these outreach pieces and how much more we are getting appropriate recognition.
Another 15 members over the month – I must sound repetitive, but I am so pleased and encouraged to see new joiners who clearly see the value in the LMA family.
With over 300 registrations our inaugural conference outperformed on any success metric. The breadth of firms, responsibilities, focus areas and seniority were all super high. We covered the key European talking areas within loan markets – data warehouse finance, ESG, portfolio management, AI and banks, schudlschein, sandwiched between two superb economic and macro keynotes and kicked off by an opening Heads of Loan Markets panel – representing the broad European loan markets from North to South, East to West.
We had academics, industry representatives including Google, and some key buy side firms contribute to the excellent debates, and it was a pleasure to see most stay till closing enjoying not only networking but a private tour of a historic museum. The next question is how to we replicate this in 2025 and where. Let me know!
As we move into November we have another full month ahead.
Our Funds Finance Think Tank has now led to a series of working groups and a clear plan on actions. We have also held a Real Assets Think Tank to set out the same discovery – what would our members like us to drive and be more and less involved in.
The Institutional Investor Committee has set out our Terms of Reference and how to submit proposals. The first one will be held in mid November after our first Investor Networking evening.
The annual Sustainable Finance Conference is imminent, followed by our East Africa Conference, Middle East Conference, and FutureLend Europe. I very much look forward to seeing many of you there with the draw of some incredible speakers and content. Sustainable Finance will include a session on sports meets finance meets sustainability – how you may ask! – and it also coincides with the launch of the Green Loans Model Provisions.
Also, we are working on a greenwashing insights report for Q1 2025. The report will consider the impact of regulatory interventions, the impact on sustainable loan uptake, and the role of industry-based principles and guidance in protecting against greenwashing risk.
Keep an eye out for another important ESG piece—this time focusing on the often-underrepresented area of diversity and inclusion within the ESG realm. It’s set to be published soon, but let’s keep it under wraps for now!
There is a lot to digest here. And a lot more you will hear from us over the final months of the year. I hope I can see many of you in person at these events and if not know I am always keen to speak virtually and hear you views, ideas and challenge.
Scott McMunn
Chief Executive Officer
Loan Market Association
Vue du bâtiment du musée et du jardin © musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, photo Vincent Mercier
Vue du bâtiment du musée © musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, photo Tim Franco
