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Entity data management has historically been a rather overlooked area of the reference data landscape, but with the increase focus on managing risk, the industry is finally taking notice. It is now generally agreed to be critical to every financial institution; although the rewards for investment in entity data management appear to be rather small, the consequences for getting it wrong are severe. Settlement, legal, financial, regulatory and reputational risks are all inherent in a failure to properly manage entity data.

Risk mitigation has become the key driver for change in this current economic climate and entity data plays a significant part in this. The emergence of golden copy logic and enterprise data management in the entity data space is a positive step forwards for the industry with regards to better data management. Financial institutions are continuing to invest in improving their entity data management and the vendors in this space have stepped up to the plate to provide more integrated services. Connectivity and integration have become important buzzwords for the entity data landscape.

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Written by the editors of A-Team Group, commissioned and sponsored by Skyler Technology

The EU’s MiFID regulation is forcing major changes in the European financial services industry, creating new competition to existing market structures. In the post-MiFID environment, liquidity will no longer be ‘sticky’ but will roam the marketplace in search of the best deal.

This situation presents both a challenge and an opportunity for financial institutions. Forward-thinking institutions stand to gain market share by investing in liquidity discovery solutions in order to exploit the fragmenting marketplace. Those deciding against embracing the change do so at their peril.

This A-Team Industry Briefing examines how MiFID is changing the face of liquidity in Europe and shows how a liquidity discovery solution can turn the challenge into an opportunity.

Please note: By downloading this briefing you agree to let A-Team share your contact details with Skyler Technology.

  Liquidity Discovery in Post-MiFID Europe (496.6 KB)
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Disparate markets and complex trading call for smarter exceptions management, argues Donal O’Brien, business development director of Coexis.

If Societe Generale’s reference data systems had been a bit wiser to the activities of its users, could the actions of Jerome Kerviel and the French bank’s subsequent £3.7bn loss have been avoided? The need for increasingly complex interactions between central reference data and distributed transaction processing systems is driving many banks and brokers to re-evaluate their processes. But it’s only through the application of intelligent exception management, sometimes known as straight through exception processing (STEP), that they can really grasp the nettle.

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Welcome to ReferenceDataReview.com’s latest podcast! Periodically we bring you brief audio updates on what’s happening in the world of reference data.

In this episode:

How can financial institutions leverage their investment in Enterprise Data Management to help them cope with the operational challenges of complex derivatives and structured products?

Thea George, Editor of Reference Data Review newsletter hosts a debate with Gert Raeves of GoldenSource and Maryann Houglet of A-Team Group, covering:

• The data and data management challenges created by investment in complex derivatives
• What the data vendors and data management vendors are doing to help
• How EDM can support risk management in the post-subprime marketplace

Running time: 11 minutes 20 seconds

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Download this special report for FREE now! Click the link below.

Meeting risk and compliance requirements has always been a driver for investment in improved management of reference data, but the importance of risk and compliance has never been higher than in the current environment. The reference data challenges created by MiFID were many and complex, and dealing with them is an ongoing challenge for financial institutions. Meanwhile the regulatory burden is only growing. And can efficient management of risk – by instrument type and by counterparty – ever have been more important than it is post sub-prime?

In this special report we have brought together contributions from a number of key providers, enabling them to explain to you how they can support you in your efforts to create world class compliance and risk management capabilities.

Participants include:

  Reference Data Review - Special Report - Feb. 2008 (665.4 KB)
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The Karachi Stock Exchange has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) to share best practices in technology and with the aim of encouraging listed companies in both stock markets to cross list their equities. The deal was brought about by the Pakistan Business Council in the UAE and will, hope both parties, encourage the development of both financial markets with increased investment in both countries.

Vietnam’s Hochiminh Stock Exchange has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Deutsche Börse Group, which will see the exchanges co-operate on the dual development of securities markets in Vietnam and Germany, as well as exploring bilateral business opportunities.

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Available to Download for Free Now! (Scroll down)

The Who, What, When and Why of the Algorithmic Trading Universe

A-Team’s Algorithmic Trading Directory is the industry’s only reference for professionals active in the algorithmic and electronic trading community. The directory provides an easy-to-use guide to help buy-side professionals understand the algorithms on offer from their brokers and other trading counterparties and suppliers, where to find them, and who to talk with about them.

The Algorithmic Trading Directory lists algorithmic trading services offered by brokers, investment banks, and other sell-side financial institutions to their buy-side customers, in the form of detailed profiles of the firms’ electronic trading service offerings. Each profile features descriptive information on the proprietary algorithms on offer, including analysis of who should be using them, under what market conditions and to what end.

The Directory also includes a guide to the various forms of generic algorithms used and offered by major sell-side players, definitions of key terms, and abstracts of relevant articles with A-Team analysis.

The Algorithmic Trading Directory is available now! If you’re logged in, you can download your free copy by clicking on the PDF image below.

If you have not logged in or previously created a free user registration account, you can fill in the registration form below to create your free user account now. Once created, you can log in to see the PDF image, which you can click in order to download the Directory.

Sponsored by:

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  Reference Data Review - Issue 61 - February 2008 (2.1 MB)
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Welcome to ReferenceDataReview.com’s inaugural podcast! Periodically we bring you brief audio updates on what’s happening in the world of reference data.

In this episode:

(1) Reference Data Review’s Take on “What’s Hot for 2008″

Thea George, Editor of Reference Data Review newsletter and Editorial Director for A-Team Group, produces her crystal ball and discusses:

• The impact of the subprime crisis on reference data projects
• Tigthening budgets and outsourced/managed reference data services
• Investments in data and data management, particularly the complex products

(2) News from the Reference Data marketplace

• ICMA Market Services Division…IBEI…SWIFT…S&P…and more!

(3) Information about ReferenceDataReview.com’s new website

• White papers, polls, podcasts and more!

Running time: ~7 minutes

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Written by: Neil Edelstein, Senior Director, Product Development, GoldenSource Corporation. Throughout the boom in complex leveraged and collateralized debt instruments, high yields have all but blinded investors to the significant risk. Now that the market has turned sour, and lenders are calling in the debts, investors are learning the hard way exactly how CDOs and other exotic instruments unravel.The market will survive this crisis, but not without a few major casualties. To avoid becoming another Herstatt or Barings, institutions need a comprehensive understanding of all the debt they hold, and of all the related information on customers, counterparties, issuers and collateral. With a clear view of both their exposure to risk and the collateral they can offset against that risk, institutions can weather the storm and prove their viability to the market.

This 6-page document provides a strategy for surviving the current crisis by harnessing the benefits of Enterprise Data Management.

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ReferenceDataReview.com is conducting a poll of our site users asking this question:

Will your institution’s spending on reference data in 2008 be higher, lower, or the same as last year?

Please take a moment to answer our question. You’ll find the poll on the right side of any page in the ReferenceDataReview.com website. We’ll post the results in this space upon completion.

Summary

This document describes an exercise to measure the scalability and performance of the Syn~Settlements application upon a Linux/HP platform. The results recorded include:

~ demonstrated scalability consistent with a linear model;
~ peak throughput of the scalable system at 77K trades per hour;
~ demonstrated efficacy of quad-core processor architectures as a means of scaling the database tier;
~ maximum throughput recorded on six CPUs was 105k trades per hour.

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  Electronic Trading - Issue 45 - October 2007 (1.6 MB)
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Long the heir apparent to his predecessor Lenny Schrank, Lázaro Campos has finally taken the helm at Swift. Here he tells A-Team IQ how he plans to build on its franchise to better meet the needs of its customers in the securities industry

By Thea George

When we meet Lázaro Campos at Swift’s La Hulpe headquarters in August, he recalls that he received the news of his appointment as the co-operative’s new CEO on a Tuesday. “I was just about to give a presentation to 400 people,” he says. “I didn’t tell anyone at the time, except my wife.”

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With the exponential rise of algorithmic trading in the US and European markets seemingly affirmed, how far beyond equities and into the Asian markets can it go?

By Roger Aitken

The use of algorithmic trading strategies has grown rapidly in Europe during 2006 and into this year. An Edhec Risk Advisory survey revealed recently that 78 per cent of buy side firms were using algorithms, versus 58 per cent in 2004. Certainly, more firms have access to algorithmic trading systems, yet it appears that they still only use them for a small percentage of trades. Edhec’s preliminary survey findings highlight that algorithm deployment among European buy side firms accounted for just three per cent of business, compared to 11 per cent for direct market access (DMA) and 17 per cent for programme trading.

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More and more companies see service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a strategic imperative that can transform business operations, delivering flexibility and agility, a more cost-efficient IT organisation and improved alignment of IT to business goals. But for such a major initiative, it is surprising that more focus is not placed on its impact on business risk. If a company is going to go to the trouble of not only putting in place the infrastructure and project budgets to deliver SOA, but also to tackling the organisational and procedural transformation required to optimise SOA benefit, surely it is worth considering the risk implications.

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Next Generation EDM Must Support Financial Services Workflow – Globally

A-Team Group, a publishing, research, and consulting company specializing in financial information technology, was commissioned by Reuters, a leader in delivering financial data and services, to help capture the financial services industry’s current views on enterprise data management (EDM). Specifically, A-Team’s study endeavored to uncover:

• How the industry is incorporating EDM in its business processes,
• What characteristics are priorities for forward-thinking EDM implementation to be effective,
• Where components are readily available, and
• If there is consensus on required change needed for the future.

The overarching objective of the study was to gain insight on whether financial institutions’ thinking on EDM has evolved over the past few years. If so, what is driving growth of EDM solutions? Is EDM a source of competitive advantage for financial institutions and/or a requirement to manage firms in an environment of mounting regulation? Is it necessary for proactive risk management…

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Managing Risk and Exposure through Linking Aggregated Position Data

A-Team Group, a publishing, research and consulting company specialising in financial information technology, was commissioned by Enterprise Data Management specialists, GoldenSource, to conduct a series of three studies focused on specific challenges faced by global reference data managers:

• The current state in managing instrument data in reference data master files
• The growing importance of linking counterparty data into the security master
• The industry status in connecting positions/holdings data with reference data

This report, the third and last in the series, summarizes the growing importance of linking position data into the securities and reference data master. As with A-Team’s predecessor study – the counterparty report – it highlighted topics on positions data, as well as draw connections across the overall study. This report is focused on positions data and how it relates to reference data management and the Securities Master File. GoldenSource and A-Team hypothesized that the current environment is placing new demands on financial services firms’ understanding of this data in overall business practices, and we set out to validate this theory…

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  MiFID Monitor - Issue 20 - September 2007 (756.4 KB)
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