This book constitutes the proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Enterprise Applications and Services in the Finance Industry, FinanceCom2008, held in Paris, France, on December 13, 2008. The workshop spans multiple disciplines, including technical, economic, sociological and behavioral sciences. The guiding theme of this workshop was concerned with innovations in the financial services industry, driven by either new business models or changed regulations.

The nine presented papers and the keynote speech were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The topics covered are financial markets and customers, service-oriented architectures, and regulation and compliance.

Therapiddevelopmentandadoptionoftechnology-basedinformation,commu- cationandproductdeliverysystemshavefacilitatedglobalizationofthe?nancial services industry and removed the barriers between its vertical segments. New business and market models require the adaptation of existing IT infrastr- tures as well as the development of innovative solutions for both experimental and operational systems. In this context, several aspects are creating a highly innovative and at the same time competitive setup in the ?nancial industry. In the workshop series on enterprise applications and services in the ?nance industry (FinanceCom), we try to capture this development. Here, service-oriented computing concepts and architecturesplayamajorrole.Whenapplyingthesenovelconceptsintheba- ing and?nancesector,thebusiness valueofsucharchitectureshasto beassessed quantitatively. Also, the heterogeneous and evolving service-oriented modeling methodologies have to be evaluated. Pulling these novel modeling methodo- gies up to a larger picture, the technology-driventransformation of the ?nancial industry is emphasized, where a highly fragmented and heterogeneous situation is currently developing towards banking value networks. In this ?eld, ?nancial business standardization and the introduction of st- dardized service modules play a core role. Applying standardized services c- tainly allows one to utilize economies of scale in a better way and hence fosters outsourcing and o?shoring tendencies in the sector of banking information s- tems. While addressing this aspect, of course novel technologies that are being developedin other ?elds also entering the banking and ?nance domain.Web s- vicesandgridcomputing aretwo importantexamples.However,thesestandards can only be utilized when being applied homogeneously in ?nancial systems. As an example, international standards such as the "markets and ?nancial inst- ments directive (MiFID)" of the European Union are of key interest.

The theme of this book "New strategies for financial services providers" is an equally relevant and important topic in science and practice. In the (post) informa tion age economy, the German financial services market and many big financial services providers are in a deep crisis. Increasing competition due to deregulation and improved transparency through new means of communication on the one hand, and empowered customers demanding individualized solutions for their fi nancial problems e. g. because of new working circumstances, increase the pres sure on the market participants to alter their strategies according to these new challenges. Many firms have reacted defensively either by merging in the hopes of realizing scale effects - a high-risk venture considering the last few years - or by adapting "me-too-strategies" (also known as "lemming-banking") that do not provide for a sustainable competitive advantage. Based on a profound analysis of developing mega-trends in the years ahead, es pecially in information and IT-intense market, Dr. Kundisch develops a new anti cyclical strategy that aims at using IT as an enabler to strengthen customer rela tionships and focus on individualized solutions wherever it seems economically sound to do so. However, he does not stop after the development of the strategy, but provides two important concepts that may help turn this vision and strategy into reality. Thus, he favorably and refreshingly differentiates against many contributions that stop at the fairly abstract strategic level."