KfW, Germany’s largest development bank, has selected Markit’s enterprise data management (EDM) solution to drive BCBS 239 compliance, streamline its data management architecture and support its liquidity and portfolio valuations projects. Markit won the KfW contract after a lengthy public tender process that included a two month proof of concept and gaining business sign off on 200 use cases of the EDM platform.
KfW will deploy Markit EDM as part of a strategic plan throughout next year, implementing the solution in-house and decommissioning legacy systems that make it difficult to onboard new datasets and understand where data problems are occurring. The bank’s decision to implement the EDM solution is also based on its need to centralise data management for easier compliance with BCBS 239, particularly its requirements on data lineage. The first phases of the project will cover securities reference data, pricing, curves data and corporate actions, although the flexibility of the Markit platform means the bank could add further datasets at a later stage.
Holger Brinkhaus, head of quantitative analysis trading at KfW Bankengruppe, explains: “Markit has a strong pedigree in being able to deliver on large, complex EDM projects. Its system is also flexible enough to be adaptable to our broad range of data management needs across the business. The company has impressed us with its expertise in different data types, regulations and systems integration.”
For Markit, KfW becomes its ninth customer and third bank customer in the Germanic region including Switzerland. Spiros Giannaros, managing director and global head of Markit EDM, says: “KfW’s public tender process was extremely comprehensive and the scope of the project is extensive. We are delighted that we were able to successfully demonstrate our ability to deliver multiple use cases and win the mandate for the project.”
Markit acquired the EDM solution from Cadis three years ago and while it was initially developed for buy-side investment firms, Markit has increased its presence in the sell side, with about 20% of the company’s EDM customers now in the banking sector. Giannaros says the company will continue to pursue both buy-side and sell-side opportunities and notes that Tier 2 investment managers are starting to take an interest in data management solutions. The company’s hosted EDM solution that was introduced early this year is also gaining traction. On a global scale, the company has a total of 140 EDM customers, of which about 46% are in the US, 45% in EMEA and 9% in Asia Pacific.
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