AIM Software, a provider of centralised reference data management software to the financial industry, has announced the results of its Global Reference Data and Risk Management Survey conducted for the seventh consecutive year. The study was designed to inquire into the driving forces, challenges and planned investments for reference data automation. This year’s survey was sponsored by SIX Telekurs.
From April to October 2010, AIM Software carried out its Global Reference Data and Risk Management Survey in 51 countries for the seventh time. The global results 2010 show that in the wake of the financial crisis enterprises consider the reduction of errors (76% of all responses) and the reduction of costs (66%) as well as the management of risk (53%) as the main driving forces for reference data management investments. Compared to the results of previous years, these figures indicate a steady increase of the institutions’ awareness in these fields.
A major finding of this year’s survey is that the management of corporate actions is further gaining importance as firms are recognising the need for the efficient processing of corporate actions in a timely and reliable manner: more than a third of all participating institutions state that they want to invest in the management of corporate actions data in the near future, a number that has been growing steadily over the last few years. “Companies realise that they could face serious operational risk and significant losses in this field since corporate actions are one of the least automated areas in reference data management,” says Martin Buchberger, head of marketing at AIM Software. “The more complex types of corporate actions as well as increasing volumes make it necessary for firms to re-think their approach towards this labour-intensive and error-prone area of data management.”
In addition to the further automation of corporate actions, enterprises continue to focus on security master files to centrally manage their reference data. This year’s figures show that the demand in this area is still on the rise: whereas three years ago only 38% of all respondents stated that they were interested in a golden copy approach, already 52% of all respondents feed reference data into a centrally managed repository in 2010. This confirms that firms see the need to further enhance operational efficiency and to support the growing risk management and compliance requirements.
The survey’s results indicate that in the new challenging business environment enterprises are continuing to take urgent measures to extend their reference data management solution: more than a third of all respondents are currently working on improvements in their data management whereas only 16% state that they have already implemented a solution.
“By observing the developments and trends in reference data management over the time, the survey helps enterprises to get a better picture of the market drives in a changing environment. By comparing their own data management strategy with the regional or global results, firms are better able to assess the trends in reference data management,” concludes Buchberger.
Ivo Bieri, head of marketing at SIX Telekurs, adds: “We are pleased to have had the opportunity to support this year’s survey. The results are in line with what we have been hearing from our customers around the world. Our investment in corporate actions processing has led to us being able to support our customers by offering award-winning corporate actions services and data. The inexorable growth in data volumes leads to constantly increased costs for both us and our customers. We use our technical know-how to shield our customers from otherwise potentially large increases in costs and our product innovation to provide them with alternatives which generally have a lower total cost of ownership than our competitors. Making sure that we are able to supplement our close relationships with our customers with more general market knowledge such as the survey helps us to be well prepared and able to respond to our customers’ needs.”
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