The release this month of the new update of the FISD’s Best Practice Recommendations on Market Data Services Levels, Response Times and Communication Procedures – the first since the original document’s publication in March 2005 – is a timely one, given the extraordinary changes the market data industry has undergone since then.

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There’s nothing quite like a couple of reports on expanding market data volumes and technology infrastructure expenditures for summer beach reading. Both TowerGroup and Datamonitor braved the summer lull to issue research around market data. The TowerGroup report’s topline news was that it foresaw a 900% increase in the amount of market data being published by 2012. Datamonitor, meanwhile, focused on the increase in front office IT spending over the next 18 months caused mostly by an anticipated increase in market data volumes.

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The Financial Information Services Division (FISD) of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has released a follow-up white paper covering the price transparency requirements of the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The paper – issued on behalf of the MiFID Joint Working Group’s Realtime Market Data Subject Group – follows the group’s discussion of post-trade transparency in an earlier version of the paper (MiFID Monitor, April 2006).

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It started with a quiet murmuring. Then a faint rumbling. And now, product exists.
This month, Cameron Systems, best known for its FIX-based messaging platforms, unveiled the CameronFIX Market Data Server. The server will allow clients to use the Financial Information Exchange protocol for market data processing, long considered ineffectual because of the impact of FIX’s overhead on users’ low-latency requirements.

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The Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) Financial Information Services Division (FISD) has elected a new chairman and vice chair, as it continues in its efforts following the departure of former staff head, vice president Mike Atkin, after a dispute with SIIA president Ken Wasch. Tom Davin, who has succeeded Atkin, had already been confirmed as full-time staff vice president.

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Last month, A-Team Consulting, in collaboration with Insight sister publication Reference Data Review, published an extensive survey of financial institutions’ attitudes toward management of reference data. The survey, commissioned by Reuters, explored the approaches to reference data management adopted by 100 reference data managers.

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A recurring theme in conversations at this year’s SIA Show – and indeed in conversations in both New York and London after the show – was the potentially positive impact of what’s being called The Settlement on the financial information and technology market. The Settlement in question is New York attorney-general Eliot Spitzer’s multi-billion settlement with a half dozen or so major firms, in which they promised to clean up their respective acts with regards to the links between their investment banking and research operations.

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The massive event that is SIBOS was hosted earlier this month by Swift in Geneva. For those not familiar with the event, it’s the annual opportunity for Swift to extol the virtues of its financial standards initiatives and network services to a captive audience of over 6,000 bankers, investment managers, broker/dealers, custodians, and operations professionals.

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To some, Brussels is dour European capital, known only for being home to the EU and Nato. Others, however, know Brussels’ little secrets: the Grand’Place, Ixelles and the glorious Foire du Midi, an annual summer funfair that’s just ended for this year.

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