New Perspective: September 11 Changes Everything: An industry that depends on predictability now confronts massive uncertainty.(according toToday's Financial Services Industry: The Long-Term Outlook in a Post-Attack World" report from Ernst and Young)

The economic environment in which financial technology evolved in 2001 was weak and still weakening when the horrors of Sept. 11 unfolded.In a mid-November report titled "Today's Financial Services Industry: The Long-Term Outlook in a Post-Attack World," senior executives of Ernst & Young's global financial services practice take a close, hard look at the "profound and lasting impact" of the terrorist attack on the banking, insurance and investment businesses in the United States.

Before offering in-depth analyses of what can be measured, however, the firm's experts acknowledge that the effects of the enormous loss of life and talent "is, of course, immeasurable and …