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

Sitting Up and Taking Notice

Subscribe to our newsletter

Finally, the world seems to be paying attention to what industry protagonists have been saying about the reference data marketplace for what now seems like quite some time: that reference data is important to your business, no matter what it is.

Maybe it’s because the protagonists have become more sophisticated. We were encouraged to hear about the FISD’s ‘Four Pillars of Reference Data Standards,’ as presented to the Securities Industry Association by Mike Atkin last month. Pointing out that the overall goal is “a common market data infrastructure for securities processing automation,”

Atkin described the four pillars thus: 1. Identify all financial instruments with precision (multiple listings). 2. Identify all business entities for processing efficiency, regulatory compliance and risk mitigation. 3. Identify all data elements associated with a financial instrument lifecycle with absolute precision (standard terms, definitions and relationships). 4. Define a common distribution protocol for efficient and accurate processing. This kind of definition of reference data activities can only help the user community realize that it’s a serious business.

It seems to be happening. First, London’s Exchange Data International (EDI) let slip that it signed up 20 new customers in the first two months of the year. Not bad. Then, we spoke to Ken Johnson of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board’s decision to build a reference data management platform around Eagle Investment Systems’ Eagle Reference Manager system. And finally, we got wind of a major win in New York – stay tuned, as we like to say – for a relative newcomer to the space, as well as of a spate of requests for proposal – ditto – in both New York and London. A clue to how seriously the industry is now taking the various standard work going on is yielded by a glance at the list of active participants in the SIA’s Standards & Protocol Working Group:

  • Norm Allen (Bear Stearns)
  • Michael Atkin (FISD/MDDL, X9D, ISO TC68/SC4, REDAC, UII Working Group)
  • John Bottega (Credit Suisse First Boston)
  • Mary Dupay (Goldman Sachs)
  • Cecilia Holden (Merrill Lynch)
  • Steve Kelly (Goldman Sachs, Reference Data Coalition/REDAC)
  • Kevin Smith (Bank of New York, ISITC IOA)
  • Steven Lachaga (JPMorgan)
  • Simon Leighton-Porter (Citigroup, RDUG)
  • James Leman (who recently joined SunGard/Brass from Citigroup)
  • Sandy Throne (DTCC, X9D, ISO TC68/SC4)
  • John Panchery (SIA)
  • Brad Smith (Capco)
  • Judy Smith (Morgan Stanley)
  • Sanjay Vasta (Merrill Lynch Asset Management)
  • John White (State Street Global Advisors)

Whichever way you look at it, the group is not too shabby. Its particip-ants underscore the commitment the major firms are making to the initiative. Surely, with this level of support, the efforts to introduce workable standards must be successful.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Are you making the most of the business-critical structured data stored in your mainframes?

Fewer than 30% of companies think that they can fully tap into their mainframe data even though complete, accurate and real-time data is key to business decision-making, compliance, modernisation and innovation. For many in financial markets, integrating data across the enterprise and making it available and actionable to everyone who needs it is extremely difficult....

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

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology London 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

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...