Chris Blackhurst: A trading platform to solve the Lehman Brothers problem

On the fourth floor of an office building in Portman Square, 50 people are hunched over computer screens, locked in planning meetings or talking on the phone.

There’s an air of purpose at the headquarters of NetOTC — one that may change the financial world for the better.

Chaired by Bob Wigley, the ex-head of Merrill Lynch in London, and run by co-founders Neeraj Sharma (ex-LGT Capital) and Matthew Durkin (former legal director of Barclays Capital), NetOTC appears to have solved the Lehman problem.

When that bank went down, the liquidators found themselves having to deal with two million derivatives transactions with open positions. Unwinding them took three years to complete.

That was just one bank. What was obvious was that the market was so vast and complex that no bank had an accurate hold on its exposure.

After that, in an effort to inject transparency and reduce risk, the G20 pushed for central clearing for the $600 trillion (£387.32 trillion) global market.