Originally Posted by
eglnyt
I was talking in general terms. You may have personal knowledge of a particular project, I can probably throw in a few myself. Maybe you can apply that to the entire capital investment plan but I'm not so sure.
You are correct that the regulatory regime encourages spending but at some point you need to deliver and start depreciating that cost and if your investment doesn't deliver the benefit promised there will be a storm at the next licence renewal. Potentially you could end up with a big revenue outgoing that isn't funded by the revenue stream.
ATM System supply may be a near monopoly but it's one that has arisen from withdrawal from the market rather than dominant companies buying up competitors so it's hard to see how the CMA or anybody else can act to stop it. NATS at least had a choice because its previous supplier isn't in the market, if you are already bought into a family, think Apple vs Android (NATS was on Blackberry), there is less of a free choice.
I think I have agreed with your last point, we probably only disagree on the practicality of changing that.
We do generally agree, but not on everything - for instance in terms of incumbents buying up the market it absolutely has and does still happen, I just had a ‘usual suspect’ buy three suppliers who started a current tender as independents. This is for one reason only, and it’s not philanthropic…