About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Subscribe to our newsletter

If you’ve been in the industry as long as I’ve been here, then you too probably are aware that many new hot concepts have a familiar, and dated, ring to them. I was at a WFIC session on direct feeds last week when a panelist from JP Morgan Chase commented that direct feeds caused him “the most pain, sometimes for seemingly little gain.” That took me back …

I think it was around 1985 when the infamous Paull Robathan (then industry consultant supreme, now owner of English vinyard supreme) commented “digital datafeeds are great because you can process them. But bad because you have to process them.”

Back in the 1980s, the feeds were pretty pedestrian compared to the ultra-low latency (there’s a new term for you) direct feeds of today. But in a world where compute power and communications were orders of magnitude less, handling those feeds was just as tricky.

One theme to emerge from the WFIC panel was the real need for management of direct feeds (re. format changes, bandwidth requirements) and a number of vendors are indeed addressing that, armed with valuable knowledge of managing their own consolidated feed offerings. Another theme was how user firms are leveraging direct feeds not only for a primary purpose of feeding an application, but also for a secondary use, such as delivering to human traders. In short, datafeeds – and datafeed users – are becoming much more sophisticated. Where will it all end?

Until next time … here’s some great music. [tags]world financial information congress,wfic,direct feeds,paull robathan,care bears on fire[/tags]

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Unlocking value: Harnessing modern data platforms for data integration, advanced investment analytics, visualisation and reporting

4 September 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes Modern data platforms are bringing efficiencies, scalability and powerful new capabilities to institutions and their data pipelines. They are enabling the use of new automation and analytical technologies that are also helping firms to derive more value from their data and...

BLOG

AI, Cloud, Digital Assets, Cybersecurity – What to Expect at TradingTech Summit 2025

A-Team Group’s 14th Annual TradingTech Summit London is set to take place on 27th February 2025 at the Hilton Canary Wharf, bringing together industry leaders, innovators, and experts to explore the latest advancements in financial markets trading technology. Kicking Off the Conversation: Innovation, AI, and the Future of Trading Following the welcome address, Cathy Gibson,...

EVENT

AI in Capital Markets Summit New York

The AI in Capital Markets Summit will explore current and emerging trends in AI, the potential of Generative AI and LLMs and how AI can be applied for efficiencies and business value across a number of use cases, in the front and back office of financial institutions. The agenda will explore the risks and challenges of adopting AI and the foundational technologies and data management capabilities that underpin successful deployment.

GUIDE

Entity Data Management Handbook – Seventh Edition

Sourcing entity data and ensuring efficient and effective entity data management is a challenge for many financial institutions as volumes of data rise, more regulations require entity data in reporting, and the fight again financial crime is escalated by bad actors using increasingly sophisticated techniques to attack processes and systems. That said, based on best...