Data & Analytics


Banks rush to bolster compliance

Firms like JP Morgan and HSBC have taken major measures to improve internal controls so that they can comply with new and changing regulations. It won’t end there.

Bloomberg rolls out ‘actionable’ FX news service

Bloomberg has launched a new information service called First Word Foreign Exchange, which is designed to give FX traders ‘actionable’ news insight that they can quickly process and feed into their trading decisions.

Basel has triggered “infrastructure reset”

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s April 2013 report, Monitoring tools for intraday liquidity management, has provided banks with the “trigger to reset their current infrastructures”, said Detlef Braun, senior consultant at vendor SmartStream.

Accuity rolls out flexible database tool

Two years on from the merger of Accuity and Bankers Almanac, the company has combined its counterparty and payment databases into a new tool that allows users to integrate them into their own workflows.

BAML builds single data repository

Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) has completed consolidation of client transaction banking data from multiple systems into a single centralised data repository. The service will provide corporate clients with up to 14 months of data online or in file format.

Data management: Knowledge is power

Standardised data architecture at financial institutions is no longer a ‘nice to have’. Regulatory pressures and headline grabbing fines have rocketed enterprise data management to the top of the boardroom agenda.

Market surveillance: a watching brief

The US Securities & Exchange Commission is often accused of using skateboards to chase Ferraris in its attempts to keep up with trading houses, but less than a year after announcing that it intended to create a new market surveillance system – and six months after going live with it –  its cloud-based approach is […]

Risk data: can it be both efficient and compliant?

With six months before the 4th Capital Requirements Directive comes into force, many will be asking what technological improvements will be necessary to efficiently manage risk going forward. Before they embark on a costly overhaul of their data systems, firms should look at what regulatory trends are likely to require similar changes in the future and adjust their specification accordingly.

The battle for benchmarks: divisions in the ranks?

With lots of different regulatory benchmark efforts now underway, the industry could be forgiven for not taking a common stance. With IOSCO issuing final principles, ESMA and the EBA are simultaneously consulting on a European set of principles. Meanwhile the UK is moving ahead with its own reforms.

Twitter shakes up market: the impact of social media on algos

On 23 April 2013, the markets suffered a brief, sharp drop as algorithms reacted to “news” from the Associated Press’s Twitter handle that President Obama had been injured in a bombing attack at the White House. In a few minutes, the Dow Jones dropped 145 points, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost $136 billion in […]

Data structures hampering banks’ ability to monitor risk

According to a new white paper from Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, one of the key issues faced by data architects tasked with creating a unified data management infrastructure is the fact that operations in different countries often have different internal systems.

Accounting for the value of (big) data

While the value of data has become increasingly clear to businesses in the wake of the financial crisis and subsequent regulatory and compliance initiatives across Europe, they are not yet reflecting data as a valued asset on their balance sheets.

Joining the dots: Thomas Zeeb, chief executive, Six Securities Services

The post-trade infrastructures behind the world’s securities markets face as much, if not more, regulatory driven change as the trading firms in the face of legislation such as the European Union’s European Market Infrastructure Regulation. While some of the effects will be negative, the regulators are showing a constructive approach and recognising that the infrastructure providers came out of the crisis well, says Thomas Zeeb, chief executive of Six Securities Services.

TriOptima tool targets OTC derivatives reporting business

As new rules governing the central reporting of OTC derivatives take effect across the G20 nations, TriOptima, a subsidiary of broker ICAP, has said it will verify and reconcile OTC derivatives data from US post-trade utility the DTCC’s trade repository – making it the first provider to do so.

Nasdaq OMX to monitor US platform performance with CorvilNet

Nasdaq OMX plans to implement operational performance monitoring across its US trading platforms using software from Corvil. The CorvilNet performance monitoring system will provide the exchange group with the ability to simultaneously analyse activity at the network, application and trading layers. The information that is captured will allow it to alert for anomalies in real […]

Banking on the user-centric experience? Begin with robust data and analytics

The UK retail banking sector is characterised by a continuing lack of competition and resultant limited customer churn between financial services providers. This has made it difficult even for new market entrants to gain market share from long-standing, less popular competitors, due to the inconvenience and complexity involved in switching banks.

Italy’s SIA set to connect to New York as recovery plan bears fruit

Milan-based financial technology firm SIA is expanding its reach to New York later this year in a move that caps the latest-phase of a three-year recovery plan for the firm. The extension of SIA’s Financial Ring to New York follows that activation of a hub in Frankfurt is the third cornerstone, after Milan and London, […]

Integrating the LEI to enhance data and risk management

With the newly formed LEI Foundation moving forward with establishing processes for issuing and managing the Legal Entity Identifier through its Regulatory Oversight Committee and the registration of seven pre-Local Operating Units, it is worth taking a step back to understand exactly why the industry is pushing forward with the LEI and what it could achieve.

Now that’s what I call an offshore investment

Good news for those with a need for real-time financial market data at their salty fingertips while making crossing the world’s oceans: Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg services have both been benchmarked aboard ship in a proper offshore passage. Brighton-based Beacon Electronic Trading Solutions stress-tested the Thomson Reuters Eikon and Bloomberg Anywhere products on board the […]

Bloomberg builds twitter feed for financial services

Bloomberg has added real time twitter feeds to its Bloomberg Professional service so that market participants can use twitter updates from corporations, executives, governments, media outlets and other sources to help make investment decisions.

Information Mosaic strikes corporate actions deal with Thomson Reuters

Information Mosaic and Thomson Reuters have agreed to integrate the latter’s ISO-based corporate actions data feed with the former’s corporate actions solution, IMActions. Customers will get access to corporate actions data covering 94,000 companies in more than 93. “Corporate actions is a complex market where customers are balancing a global set of requirements combined with […]

EDI collaborates with Derivative Partners on independent valuation

Reference and corporate actions data specialist Exchange Data International has struck a deal with with Derivative Partners, a provider of risk management and valuation services of structured products, to provide valuations for a range of structured products and complex derivative instruments. The current service covers result sets combining various asset classes including equity, indices, FX […]

ECB adopts Thomson Reuters Eikon

The European Central Bank has signed a deal together with the central banks of 18 countries to adopt Thomson Reuters’ Eikon desktop for trading and market data.

Cross asset trading to the fore for FPL delegates

While changes to the OTC derivatives world grab the headlines, trading is moving to a cross asset world, largely driven by regulation and standardisation – and after a few years of pain, firms may find that they are better off as a result.

Infosys claims improved “time to insight” with Big Data platform

Infosys has formally announced its BigDataEdge platform, designed to allow banks to bring together Big Data analytics onto one platform. “There have been several point solutions, but it is important to have a platform,” said Vishnu Bhat, vice president and global head for cloud at Infosys. Customers that have already deployed the platform – some […]

Exchanges: time for a rebuild?

Technical problems at Nasdaq and BATS have reinforced the impression among many market observers that there may be something seriously wrong with equity market structure. Recent history reads like a catalogue of disaster for many of the world’s most prominent trading venues.