A-Team Insight Blogs The latest content from across the platform
Interactive Data’s Ian Blance Takes OTC Derivatives Valuations Experience to OTC Val Strategic Sales Role
Vancouver-based provider of independent valuations for derivatives and complex products OTC Valuations Limited (OTC Val) has marked a concerted push into the European marketplace and an ambition to grow worldwide with the hire of Ian Blance, recently ex of Interactive Data (Reference Data Review @ FIMA, November 5 2007), as vice president of strategic sales….
A-Team Analysis: Can S&P Solve the Problem of Entity Identification Where the ISO Process Has Failed?
Another month, another twist in the tail of the International Business Entity Identifier (IBEI) story. In fact, there could be two twists this month if the Swift CIVIC initiative does turn out to be on the skids. As reported extensively in Reference Data Review last year (in the October 2007 issue among others), the ISO-led…
Swift Admits CIVIC Plans “Under Review”, as Observers Suggest Business Case Proving Difficult
As Reference Data Review went to press, it emerged that Swift could be having second thoughts about pressing ahead with previously-announced plans to allocate BIC-like codes to funds – dubbed CIVICs (Reference Data Review first brought to light Swift’s CIVIC plans as far back as September 2006). In light of the failure of the ISO…
Interactive Data Provides Daily Evaluations for GNMA Serial Notes
Interactive Data Corporation’s Pricing and Reference Data business has begun providing daily evaluations for Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) Serial Notes backed by 100 per cent Puerto Rico collateral, based on its experience in producing evaluations for global fixed income instruments. Interactive Data will initially provide evaluations for nearly 37,000 Serial Notes, and plans to…
Always look on the bright side of life…
2008 will be the year when we see how serious firms are about reference data. This is a phrase I’ve borrowed from a leading industry observer because I think it aptly sums up the general thinking of those involved in reference data as the new year kicks off. Without wishing to be unnecessarily gloomy, the…
Desjardins Cleans Up Entity Data, Deploys SunGard Adaptiv Credit Risk
Desjardins Group has signed a three-year deal with CounterpartyLink for the provision of legal entity data as part of a larger counterparty and issuer risk project that will also see Desjardins – the biggest co-operative financial group in Canada – implement SunGard Adaptiv Credit Risk. CounterpartyLink’s data will first be used by Desjardins to ensure…
ICMA Ltd Renames, Builds Warehouse To Support New Information Services
Under its new name and governance, Xtrakter – the market services division of the International Capital Market Assocation (ICMA), formerly known as ICMA Limited – is targeting a higher profile as a data vendor. Xtrakter is gearing up to unleash a raft of new fixed income pricing and reference data products, and believes its legal…
Buy Buy Buy
There was quite a bit of M&A activity last week. Oracle and BEA for $8.5 billion (we’ll have to see whether that’s good news for BEA’s Weblogic Event Server), Sun Microsystems and MySQL for a billion, and NYSE-Euronext snapping up Wombat Financial Software for $200 million. For Wombat – headquartered in Nevada’s Incline Village where…
A perfect match?
The acquisition by Markit of Swapswire garnered considerable attention by virtue simply of being the latest in a seemingly never-ending stream of acquisitions by the data and valuations provider. True to form, with this venture Markit puts itself at the leading edge of the capital markets’ preoccupation – improving the automation of OTC derivatives. In…
A-Team Analysis: Time to Look for Alternatives to ISO for Standards?
Unrest among industry participants about the efficacy of ISO standards creation is reaching a peak as the failure of the formal process to keep pace with the reality of market requirements looks set to prompt a rethink about the best way to create standards for financial markets. Whether there is a better method for solving…