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Lloyd's to retain trading floor; CEO

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LONDON—Lloyd's of London Chief Executive Richard Ward has committed to maintaining a trading floor at the 300-year-old insurance market, although he called for technological and business process reform to support face-to-face transactions.

Mr. Ward joined Lloyd's in April this year, having transformed the London-based International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), re-branded ICE Futures, into an electronic trading platform.

In an address to the Insurance Institute of London at the Lloyd's building at One Lime Street, Mr. Ward said that it was clear that Lloyd's "fundamental strength" lies in its "human capital".

"Lloyd's will not become a homogenous faceless group of companies. We will continue to have a trading floor," he said.

However, Mr. Ward said that the trading floor would have to be supported by technology and more efficient business processes.

Mr. Ward said that in his first six months at Lloyd's he was impressed with the level of passion and commitment in the market and had sensed a "real desire to embrace change".

But the Lloyd's CEO said that he was not impressed by the amount of paper still used in the market, which was enough to "fill two jumbo jets", he said.

He said that tackling inefficiencies in the market was a top priority and that he would consider mandatory measures if the market failed to hit the target of processing all claims electronically by the end of next year.