About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Bloomberg Bows to Pressure to Maintain Support for BUID Indefinitely

Subscribe to our newsletter

The migration plans of data giant Bloomberg to gradually move users from its BUID identifier to its new Bloomberg Global ID (BBGID), which is at the heart of its open symbology initiative, have hit a roadblock. Users have exerted pressure on the vendor to step back from the initial migration timeline and to maintain support for the BUID indefinitely, and the vendor has agreed, for now at least.

The enforced migration from one identifier to another, with a defined shut off date for the BUID, was considered to be too restrictive for financial institutions struggling with a whole host of new regulatory requirements. Industry groups such as the Information Providers User Group (IPUG) and individual financial institutions have therefore been feeding this information back to the vendor, along with a whole host of other suggestions, such as the inclusion of Bsym in FOW TRADEdata’s service Xymbology.

The BBGID is a 12 digit alphanumerical security identifier that is maintained on the Bloomberg database and is automatically assigned to each new security that is added to the vendor’s system. According to the vendor, there will be more than 852 billion potential number available, all of which are being made available via the vendor’s Bloomberg Open Symbology (Bsym) website at no charge to users.

In a whitepaper on the Bsym initiative, Bloomberg states what it considers to be the benefits of its approach: “Eliminating the need to remove proprietary IDs and re-map securities will greatly simplify the steps needed to migrate between market data platforms and trading systems. Availability of a central symbology reference will facilitate mapping between users’ internal systems and create opportunities for integration and automation of the global enterprise.”

The BBGID is considered by some in the market to be the jewel in the crown of the data vendor’s Bsym initiative and a potential rival to the Reuters Instrument Code (RIC) in the market. One reference data exec within a large financial institution recently told Reference Data Review there is potential for the BBGID to “blow the RIC out of the water” due to the level of its specificity and granularity.

The vendor’s ambitions for the identifier could be boosted by the current regulatory drive for greater standardisation within the instrument and entity data space. Regulators are keen to be able to more closely track systemic risk and the standardisation of these reference data items across the market could significantly aid this endeavour (as proved by the discussions around the Office of Financial Research).

With the aim of proving its openness, Bloomberg also signed an agreement in April this year with NYSE Euronext to include its Bsym codes on NYSE’s data feed products globally. NYSE Euronext has initially added Bloomberg Bsym codes to its OpenBook product and will then move on to distribute Bsym along with its standard security identifiers for New York Stock Exchange-listed companies across all its data products.

The Bloomberg whitepaper on the details of the Bsym initiative is available to download here.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Hearing from the Experts: AI Governance Best Practices

9 September 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes The rapid spread of artificial intelligence in the financial industry presents data teams with novel challenges. AI’s ability to harvest and utilize vast amounts of data has raised concerns about the privacy and security of sensitive proprietary data and the ethical...

BLOG

Rise of Data Products Excites Data Management Summit London

Squeezing the most value from data has become the key driver of data management innovation in the past few years. Among the tools garnering most attention in this quest is an approach that treats data as a consumer product. The theory is a simple one. By packaging datasets as well and data-centric services and products,...

EVENT

Data Management Summit New York City

Now in its 15th year the Data Management Summit NYC brings together the North American data management community to explore how data strategy is evolving to drive business outcomes and speed to market in changing times.

GUIDE

FRTB Special Report

FRTB is one of the most sweeping and transformative pieces of regulation to hit the financial markets in the last two decades. With the deadline confirmed as January 2022, this Special Report provides a detailed insight into exactly what the data requirements are for FRTB in its latest (and final) incarnation, and explores what needs to be done in order to meet these needs on a cost-effective and company-wide basis.