The ability to deal with both managed funds and directly-held assets would also be crucial, Worner said. SWIFT’s Hamer said an industry utility to standardise basic managed fund transactions “should have happened years ago”, and with the Government’s renewed focus on fees paid by retail investors, the industry risked having a regulated utility imposed on it if it did not come up with one itself. Morse’s Worner went so far as to daydream that if the industry did set about creating its own utility, it might be seen by the Rudd Government as a “shovel-ready project” worthy of funding from the stimulus package. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath for that,” he said.