SIX has won the award for Best Data Provider to the Sell-Side in A-Team Group’s Data Management Insight Awards Europe 2023. These annual awards recognise leading providers of data management solutions, services and consultancy to capital markets participants in Europe.
SIX’s data provision to the sell-side was selected as an award winner by A-Team Group’s European data management community.
Shai Popat, Head of Content and Product Management at SIX, explains why and how the company’s award-winning service was created, its use cases, and the benefits it can deliver. He also discusses the development roadmap.
A-Team: Please tell us about SIX and the types of capital markets clients the company works with.
Shai: SIX is a global financial market infrastructure provider supporting the entire value chain. It is headquartered in Switzerland. Among its four business units, Financial Information is a key partner to the capital markets ecosystem offering reference, market, regulatory and ESG data and solutions. With our unique database and our diverse product offering we support all financial professionals, from back to front-office and buy-side to sell-side.
A-Team: What challenges are your sell-side clients facing at the moment?
Shai: Over the past decade, the sell-side has been under the scrutiny of regulators worldwide. The global regulatory framework has placed investor protection at the centre of all concerns, which has consequently put the sell-side under compliance pressure.
Regulation is not the only challenge, with data quality, technology shifts and cost pressure also needing to be taken care of.
A-Team: How does SIX help clients address these challenges?
Shai: To express this in a few words, we take away the burden of data management. Since 1930, we have developed our expertise in data collection, aggregation and dissemination. Our clients don’t just get data, but data sets that have already been prepared to fulfill their needs, in the format and via the delivery mechanism they need.
We have also built expertise in the fields of regulation, ESG, crypto and ETFs, as well as technologies such as APIs, bots and cloud-based solutions.
A-Team: More specifically, what do the company’s award-winning data services offer to users and how do they work?
Shai: Let’s start with regulation. SIX monitors over 80 local and international regulations, covering all topics from investor protection to reporting, tax, ESG and crypto. Based on this knowledge, we craft and offer data sets that provide the data points required for compliance. These data sets are all consistent and allow optimal usage when regulations overlap. We also propose solutions that go one step further in suitability.
Quality is a core focus for us and especially in our field of expertise: reference data and corporate actions. The SIX data model enables complex events to be standardised, decrypted, and delivered in near-real time to clients. All corporate actions data is quality approved by constant checks throughout the collection, processing and distribution chain. We are always looking for innovative usage of this data.
That’s why, this year, we launched our Corporate Actions Calendar, an overview of all future events impacting a portfolio, and SIX Bot, an AI based tool that allows you to see all corporate actions for any given ISIN.
Finally, our technological offering has been enhanced with new APIs for easier, state-of-the-art integration and SIX Connect for cloud-based delivery solutions.
A-Team: What are the benefits of implementing SIX data services?
Shai: Again, we take the data burden from our clients. They benefit from our acknowledged expertise and our management of the full value chain of data content. Everything is delivered according to our clients’ specific needs, be it a feed, flat files, APIs, terminal, or cloud-based access. Whatever the chosen channel, there is no discrepancy in the data that remains consistent, up-to date and traceable.
Ultimately, when working with SIX, our clients don’t work with a vendor but with a partner. We seek collaboration with our users, use co-creation when developing new products, and value being a key stakeholder in, and support for, the whole financial ecosystem.
A-Team: Please run through a short case study of SIX data services on the sell-side.
Shai: The use case I would highlight is related to sanctioned securities. The sell-side offers investment banking, sales and trading services to institutional and individual clients. Therefore, it is important that no financial instruments directly issued by a sanctioned issuer or an investment vehicle, such as an ETF, option or structured product, are marketed if they have indirect exposure to tainted securities.
The Sanctioned Securities Monitoring Service from SIX is a list-based service that can be used for pre-trade compliance checks to block a trade before it happens. Research has shown that sanctions due diligence is not as well established on the buy-side where investment products are tailored, although many sell-side banks rely on our market-leading service.
A-Team: How will you develop these award-winning services over the next year?
Shai: SIX will always keep in mind its clients’ needs and investigate their future challenges. In this respect, the development of new ESG data propositions, risk assessment solutions – in particular for new digital assets, innovative delivery channels, and data access using disruptive technologies such as AI, are all on our plan for upcoming months and years.
A-Team: Finally, what does winning A-Team Group’s Europe award for Best Data Provider to the Sell-Side mean to SIX?
Shai: Our core objective is to advance the data landscape for the sell-side by providing accurate and tailored data as a service. Winning this award means that not just a product, but our full offering is recognised as consistent and serving the needs of this specific sector of the industry.
Receiving the award is an honour and an incentive to continue investing in our products and services, and support our clients and the market on a global scale.
We would like to express our thanks to A-Team and the Data Management Insight community for its trust and votes.
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