NAFIS Preview

Looking back at discussions held during the North American Financial Information Summit (NAFIS) last year, the legal entity identifier dominated the conversations, although other topics in the reference data space were beginning to find some oxygen.

This year, regulatory concerns such as Fatca, Basel III and MiFID II, risk management-related issues and data governance are getting more air, as reflected on the agenda for this year's NAFIS on May 21.

Since firms' internal data governance is unavoidably dictated by regulation, governance is constantly changing. Within a single firm, departments can have different levels of maturity to their internal governance. Clients also demand certain provisions within governance, necessitating more variations.

Also, as we are likely to hear during NAFIS, ownership of data is in and of itself a form of governance. With different departments or clients requiring data on multiple types of securities in varied delivery methods, the result is numerous permutations of data categories.

NAFIS panelists may explore whether the concept of "provider governance" is an answer. Think of "provider governance" as what happens when a data source works with another company taking the role of a data steward. Then the consumer still may choose sources of data, but all concerned parties can know that the data is being governed by the original source.

Following that process all the way through is related to transparency, another major concern in data management support for risk management, as well as data governance. Transparency will also be a focus during the reference data stream of NAFIS, including presentation of a case study on that topic.

On behalf of the staff of Inside Reference Data, we're looking forward to seeing you all at NAFIS, and for those unable to attend, coverage of selected sessions will appear on Twitter through our handle @referencedata and the hashtag #NAFIS2013, as well as compilations of tweets at irdonline.com and follow-up reporting. See you there.