Prof. Adrian Bell meets future ICMA Centre students in Beijing

As part of a series of features ahead of the General Election 2019, Professor Adrian Bell and Henley students were interviewed by BBC South Today's business editors Alistair Fee. Filming took place in one of the dealing rooms at the ICMA Centre, with students engaging in a stock market simulation in line with the series theme of 'What the markets say'.

The large fine imposed on RBS last week suggests that a ‘scandal’ took place in the banking world over the setting of LIBOR. Yes – there was probably systematic mis-pricing of LIBOR which enabled some traders and some banks to profit at the expense of others. But the LIBOR issue simply highlights a much wider problem in financial markets which is that many ‘prices’ quoted in markets are not market prices at all. Instead they are prices based on computer models, matrix pricing or sheer guesswork, which may or may not produce ‘accurate’ prices. The reason for using computers models and guesswork is that in many financial products there actually are no transactions at all or very few even over periods of some weeks or months and thus no market prices.

MSc Corporate Finance student Peter Bamrud was presented with the CISI Educational Trust award by Dr George Alexandridis to recognise and celebrate his commitment to excellence throughout his studies at the ICMA Centre and support him as he launches his career within the finance sector.