Back-office intricacy: the description of financial objects in an investment bank

Abstract

The complexity of contemporary finance translates into what we call the problem of "description": the problem of constructing robust, flexible, portable, and mutually compatible depictions of complex, multisided, and often ambiguous financial objects (products, trades, marketplaces). This problem is characteristically exacerbated in back-office operations within the financial services industry. We provide a case study in the form of a qualitative examination of back- and middle-office operations in an international investment bank. We analyze the manifold manifestations of the problem of description within this bank. Copyright 2011 The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

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