1. Success can come from failureIn 1993, Taurus, the Transfer and Automated Registration of Uncertified Stock project designed to transfer London Stock Exchange (LSE) settlement from paper communication to an automated system, was abandoned, giving Saville an opportunity.

With the LSE crying out for an alternative to Taurus, he led the creation of CREST, the UK's Central Securities Depository (CSD) securities settlement system, which was launched on time and within budget in 1996.

He recalls: "The collapse of Taurus gave the Bank of England the opportunity to say to the market: 'Well, you tried to computerise history, it failed, so let's do it a modern way'."
"I think my job as Chairman is to make sure they don't agree with each other too much"To help introduce CREST, the LSE brought in rolling settlement. "In those days, people traded for a fortnight or so and the results of all those trades were settled on one day, which was bonkers," says Saville. "Moving from account settlement to rolling settlement was a big cultural change that required everyone to tighten up their processes, and CREST built on that."

Saville's work in establishing one of the largest and most sophisticated securities settlement systems in the world led to him being awarded a CBE in 1999.

2. Radical change is sometimes the way forwardSaville describes the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) initiative called Target2Securities (T2S) as an "honourable descendant" of CREST. "It has the same 'one-size-fits-all' goals and many of the same characteristics," he says.

The CV
Present: Independent Director, BNY Mellon CSD and Independent Non-Executive Director, EuroCCP

2013: Senior Adviser, SIA/Colt

2007-12: Programme Board Member, European Central Bank

2004-07: Head of Market Reform, Lloyd's of London

2003-04: Executive Director, EMEA, Computershare

1999: Awarded a CBE

1993-2002: Chief Executive, CrestCo

1973: Graduates from University of Oxford's Magdalen College with a Doctorate in Solid State PhysicsIts infrastructure is designed to promote competition and it has the same flexibilities as CREST, which is important, believes Saville, because both features allow people to innovate.

"I think the European Central Bank was encouraged by CREST to believe that you can foster radical change and say to the market users, this is a better way to do things and you can make this important step to a single market happen."

3. Technology is crucial to creating a true European single marketThe ESCB views T2S, to be launched in 2015, as a key driver for the harmonisation of post-trade services and standards, which will contribute to achieving stronger financial integration and a true European single market. The ESCB anticipates that T2S will bring down cross-border settlement fees by fully exploiting the economies of scale resulting from the use of a single IT settlement platform, a single set of standards and a single operational framework.

One of the major benefits of T2S will be that all securities balances will be held on the same computer, adds Saville. "Say you're a customer of a bank holding your securities in Italy: in T2S, it is now straightforward for Monte Titoli [the Italian CSD] to transfer them to someone in Germany or Slovakia."

4. Politics sometimes trumps economicsSaville is saddened that Britain will not be a part of T2S, although he understands why. "The fundamental reason is the sovereignty of our currency," he says. "The issue of who has control over the use of central bank money is much easier to solve within a single currency. Are we in or are we out of Europe?

"Until that's resolved, I think it is hard to make a political commitment to losing some currency sovereignty in order to make the sterling securities markets fully interoperable with the eurozone markets. The optics of it are difficult, even if the practicalities might be manageable."

5. Regulation can go too farOn 6 October this year, UK and Irish exchanges shortened their settlement periods from three days to two. At the same time, securities that settle via the Euroclear system in Belgium, France and Holland also adopted T+2.

Although Saville thinks T+2 will take costs out of the system while encouraging end users to have slicker processes, he expresses concern that following the 2008 economic crisis, moves to regulate Europe's financial markets might have gone too far.

"I do sometimes wonder if there isn't a very large inverted pyramid of compliance - legal, regulatory, financial, tax, and so on - with just a few producers at the bottom," he says. "It feels dangerously unstable because there's so much of it."

6. Broadening your risk outlook is a mustRegulators now require financial services firms to take a much more scenario-based approach to assessing risk, promoting many firms to broaden their risk outlook by bringing their client base and dedicated risk experts into their risk committees.

Saville currently chairs risk committees at BNY Mellon's new European CSD, where he is an Independent Director, and EuroCCP, where he serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director. His appointment to both committees reflects the broader approach CCPs are taking to risk management, in accordance with European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).

As chairman of a risk committee, Saville encourages committee members to say what they think. "I think my job as Chairman is to make sure they don't agree with each other too much."

7. Changing your career plans can pay dividendsAfter graduating from university, Saville looked set for a career outside finance. He holds a doctorate in Solid State Physics from University of Oxford's Magdalen College, along with an honours degree in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics from the University of St Andrews, but decided a career in science was not for him.

"I was bit fed up with it at the end, and I realised that by the standards of my Oxford colleagues, I wasn't that good at it. After graduating I probably went to a hundred first interviews to educate myself and in the end I joined the Bank of England. The Bank was at the heart of things and looked like a pretty good place to work."

8. Events can reduce good work to rubbleIn the late 1990s, Saville faced a new challenge when the UK Government pegged sterling to the future European currency with the intention of joining it.

"There was a synthetic currency at the time, the ECU [European Currency Unit, a basket of currencies of the EU member states], and we issued quite a lot of ECU debt, hedged it out on the asset side and so on. In all, we made a fair amount of money for the public purse while developing the London ECU market."

The Bank made good progress towards developing and harmonising the market, as well as establishing the UK's reputation as the leading issuer of ECU instruments. "Then, of course, 'Black Wednesday' came along, at which point we were not particularly credible as a future member of the future currency."

9. It is nice to give something backWhile at Lloyd's, Saville become a governor at an East London primary school - a role he still relishes today. "I was at the right stage of my life to do something like this," he says.

Despite the challenges of being located in one of the poorer parts of the capital - 55% of its pupils receive free school meals and, until recently, most of its classrooms were in portable buildings - the school's performance has been transformed in the eight years that Saville has been a governor.

10. Taking a back seat makes a nice changeSinging is another of Saville's passions and he is a member of the Dulwich Choral Society.

Having spent much of his career in positions of huge responsibility, he welcomes being part of the chorus line. "There's something very nice about being a back-row tenor or bass and thinking that it's someone else who's waving the stick at the front."

Saville remains firmly in the driving seat, however, when it comes to helping firms get the most out of a Europe-wide securities settlement system that he has helped make a reality.