It was a day to remember: 20 years ago, on 27 October 1986, Big Bang caused a revolution in the securities market which turned the whole financial sector upside down.
The early 1980s was a time of change. The Thatcher government’s thirst for deregulation was at its height. Exchange controls had been lifted, capital could be invested anywhere, nationalised industries were being privatised and restrictive practices were being crushed. Meanwhile, information technology was beginning its hugely influential growth.
In fact Big Bang, which had at its heart the abolition of fixed minimum stock exchange commissions, was overdue. Fixed commissions had been abolished in New York more than ten years before. But in the UK a half-hearted attempt by the Stock Exchange to hold on to the old rules lingered in the Restrictive Practices Court until, in 1983, Nicholas Goodison, then chairman of the Stock Exchange, and Cecil Parkinson, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, agreed that the restrictions should be scrapped and competition allowed in.
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