AFTAs 2018: Best New Technology Introduced Over the Last 12 Months (Data and Operations)—UnaVista (London Stock Exchange Group)

As 2018 has now come to a close, the year has seen capturing data and regulatory reporting obligations occupy large numbers of capital markets participants, especially with the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (Mifir) on January 3, 2018. 

A year on, and the regulatory burden has shown little signs of subsiding. UnaVista, the regulatory reporting arm of London Stock Exchange Group Technology, is a familiar name in this space, and over the past 12 months has dedicated its efforts to develop its Mifir three-way reconciliation service to help firms comply with their reconciliation requirements under Mifir RTS 22 article 15. This latest functionality, aimed at tackling a complex data problem and minimizing compliance breaks, has helped UnaVista win the AFTA for the best new technology introduced over the last 12 months (data and operations). 

Maryse Gordon, senior pre-sales and business development manager at UnaVista, explains that the three-way functionality captures and reconciles data from three key data points: a firm’s internal system, the data records submitted to UnaVista from one or multiple firms, and extracts of the reports filed with regulators. The technology’s core objective is to ensure consistency of data quality throughout the process, reduce the likeliness of compliance breaks, and deliver clear visibility of reporting failures. “The process of submitting data is one aspect of regulatory reporting where firms need to do their due diligence to ensure that what they have reported is quality data, is accurate data, is complete data, and is also submitted in a timely fashion,” Gordon explains. “So one way to do that completeness check is to use reconciliation services such as UnaVista, which allows for post-reporting using three-way reconciliation on a T+1 [basis].”

Built using a modular approach, the UnaVista platform is regulator-agnostic and can be adapted to support multiple jurisdictions, asset classes and products. Looking ahead, the provider plans to continue rolling out its Securities Financing and Transactions Regulation offering and focus on developing its data and analytics capabilities to allow clients to benchmark and compare their reporting performances with those of their peers. “Data and analytics are going to be a very big part of our strategy for 2019 and beyond,” says Gordon. “We are looking at enhancing the visualization of data, creating new products from it to allow our clients to gain deeper levels of insight into their reporting activity, but also using that information to make decisions about where to take their business.”