because it's just damn simpler to manage the resources in-house than to depend on a fickle and unpredictable market to do the same.

While that may be so, the real reason is that it makes the barrier to entry even greater.

You only need to look at how ICE Futures have just taken the Deutsche Borse road and integrated clearing with the trading platform.

Nothing whatever (I don't count OFGEM, who are as useless as the FSA have been) to stop the French bleeding the Brits dry, and frankly, it's all we deserve.

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky