Refinitiv, formerly the Financial and Risk business of Thomson Reuters, is planning to sweat its data assets through an agreement with Microsoft that will integrate Refinitiv financial and markets data in applications and services including Microsoft Excel, MSN Money and Bing. This breaks with the former Thomson Reuters tradition of supplying data through a pipe to capital markets participants and brings financial data to the masses using Microsoft tools. Microsoft previously sourced financial market data for its apps from Morningstar.
Refinitiv says its agreement with Microsoft will expand access to its data to more people, perhaps consultants and subject matter experts using Excel, and that wider data distribution is made possible by its move to the cloud, which makes data easier to consume.
Refinitiv data will initially be integrated with Excel and is expected to be available by the end of this year. Microsoft News will also publish financial data from Refinitiv along with curated news from more than 1,000 publishers and 3,000 brands to keep users informed via MSN.com, the MSN Money app and other Microsoft products.
The financial information provided by Refinitiv includes fundamental company information covering 181 markets in 36 languages, and pricing information, with up to 7 million updates per second over 70 million financial instruments. Putting limits on the use of this data, the agreement states that users of Microsoft products will have access to sufficient company information and price data to fulfil most needs for non-financial professionals.
Debra Walton, chief customer proposition officer at Refinitiv, says: “In a complex and fast-moving world, more people than ever need accurate, comprehensive data they can trust at their fingertips to work smarter, make better decisions and succeed. This agreement harnesses the ubiquity of Microsoft’s software and apps to bring the power of our trusted financial data to consumers and business users.”
