Interactive Data’s Pricing and Reference Data business has enhanced the capabilities of its web-based Cost Basis service. This service is designed to help automate the calculation and delivery of cost basis information and enable firms to more effectively monitor their customers’ securities cost basis over time.
Interactive Data has broadened the capabilities of the service to calculate adjusted cost basis for multiple tax lots (buys and sells) of the same or different securities at one time. The results are delivered in a consolidated report, showing adjusted number of shares, cost basis allocation, long and short term gains/losses, and relevant holding period dates for each tax lot. This ability to enter multiple transactions at one time can help users to select from several accounting methods that might be available, including First In/First Out (FIFO), specific identification of securities sold and average cost.
Interactive Data’s Cost Basis service provides customers with access to a comprehensive database that includes corporate actions for most listed securities dating back to inception. It is designed to assist customers in complying with their broker basis reporting requirements under the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act of 2008 (EESA) by helping to retrieve important corporate actions that can affect cost basis and to calculate adjusted cost basis.
“Based on feedback from current and prospective customers, we determined that providing batch processing capabilities for calculating cost basis would help enable customers to operate more efficiently as they prepare for their new cost basis reporting requirements,” says Charles Price, senior director, entity data products for Interactive Data. “With our depth of historical information, including 35 years of dividends and pricing data, we are well positioned to help our customers determine cost basis.”
“Our firm continuously seeks out additional services to help us more efficiently address our cost basis reporting needs,” says Dave Merriam, operations manager for Raymond James Financial. “One of the tools we use is Interactive Data’s Cost Basis service, which provides us with required data to enable us to efficiently process corporate actions, perform sophisticated calculations and obtain the resulting information in a consolidated format.”
Customers utilising Interactive Data’s Cost Basis service can receive the data in a range of formats and delivery systems. They can also access web-based tools to monitor daily corporate actions that affect cost basis, create portfolios for tracking specific events and build customised reports. The Cost Basis service offers batch processing of historical transactions for assisting in confirming and establishing adjusted cost basis as well as comprehensive tools for helping to confirm cost basis information for accounts that have been transferred.
