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

ICMA Ltd Plans Data Products, Extension Of TRAX2 to More Instruments

Subscribe to our newsletter

Data products will be at the heart of a new raft of offerings being developed by ICMA Ltd, the market services division of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).

In an effort to more effectively utilise the data assets it has acquired through its provision of the TRAX trade matching and transaction reporting system for over-the-counter instruments, ICMA Ltd has kicked off a programme to determine how it could better meet its clients’ market data needs, according to its newly appointed director of product management Graeme Austin.

“ICMA Ltd is at the heart of fixed income data in the capital markets,” Austin told Reference Data Review. “For many years we have been collecting end-of-day pricing and real-time quotes for fixed income instruments and supplying them to other vendors. My role is to talk to our subscribers and find out how we might be able to manage this data better, add value to it, so as to create new services to meet their needs.”

ICMA Ltd is also focusing on how to provide further tools to help its clients in their risk mitigation efforts, he adds. “Another aspect of my role is to examine how we might extend TRAX2 to other sectors that are exposed to increased risk. We have already extended our matching capabilities to cover repos and to include the hedge fund community within this service.” The practice of affirming and confirming OTC deals as early as possible in the trade lifecycle is a well-accepted method of reducing the risk of such transactions.

Austin is building a new product management team at ICMA Ltd, and will be working to formulate its future product strategy for the remainder of this year and early next, with a view to presenting a roadmap for development by the end of Q1 2008.

TRAX2 has also received approval from the UK Financial Services Authority as an Approved Reporting Mechanism (ARM) under MiFID, following completion of testing with both the FSA and its subscribers, according to ICMA Ltd. “Unlike many other systems TRAX2 has a proven capability of reporting to multiple regulators in Europe already,” Austin says. “In light of MiFID we have been in continuous dialogue with other competent authorities and are now fast tracking TRAX2 through other jurisdictions.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: End-to-End Lineage for Financial Services: The Missing Link for Both Compliance and AI Readiness

The importance of complete robust end-to-end data lineage in financial services and capital markets cannot be overstated. Without the ability to trace and verify data across its lifecycle, many critical workflows – from trade reconciliation to risk management – cannot be executed effectively. At the top of the list is regulatory compliance. Regulators demand a...

BLOG

Clearwater Looking to Bridge Front-to-Back Office Tech Gaps with Acquisitions

It’s difficult for data and technology companies to fully service financial institutions’ front-to-back operations when behemoth providers are offering closely integrated capabilities at scale already. Clearwater Analytics, however, has a strategy that it believes will work not by necessarily competing with the big aggregators, but by working with them and filling gaps that they don’t...

EVENT

TradingTech Summit London

Now in its 15th year the TradingTech Summit London brings together the European trading technology capital markets industry and examines the latest changes and innovations in trading technology and explores how technology is being deployed to create an edge in sell side and buy side capital markets financial institutions.

GUIDE

The DORA Implementation Playbook: A Practitioner’s Guide to Demonstrating Resilience Beyond the Deadline

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) has fundamentally reshaped the European Union’s financial regulatory landscape, with its full application beginning on January 17, 2025. This regulation goes beyond traditional risk management, explicitly acknowledging that digital incidents can threaten the stability of the entire financial system. As the deadline has passed, the focus is now shifting...