AFTAs 2022: Best new technology introduced over the last 12 months (data, data services and data management)—Rimes
Project: ESG Master
Overview
The Rimes ESG Master data solution is a multi-level managed data service that provides institutional investors with a single golden source of all their ESG data. Users can consume ESG Master data into their internal and downstream workflows via data feed, desktop API and cloud. Rimes applies proprietary technology to validate all vendor-provided ESG data.
What problem does it solve?
The quality, consistency and delivery of ESG data is still in an early state, which makes consumption of that data a challenge for capital markets firms―many are unable to scale up, source and validate the data they need. Rimes developed the multi-level ESG Master to fill this gap in the market and serve as a golden source of high-quality data to the investment management community.
“Our investment teams manage vast amounts of complex structured and unstructured data sources, and volumes continue to rise. It was clear that we were too reliant on labor-intensive, time-consuming processes and needed changing. Our objectives were simple in order to maintain our strong competitive position: drive productivity and efficiency, empower socially responsible and improved investment performance, deliver enhanced customer service capabilities, and achieve our aggressive ESG goals. To do this and power business growth plans, we had to modernize the entire data management function.”
Sadeer Jan, senior manager of business intelligence and digital, NGS Super
How does it solve the problem?
The Rimes ESG Master takes the burden of ESG data management away from its clients. Its approach provides access to proprietary mastering algorithms and ensures that security identifiers are mapped to all entities and securities in clients’ portfolios and linked to millions of ESG data points from over 30 ESG vendors. Clients have the ability to interact with and validate the data via Rimes’ online platform to customize hierarchies, propagation logic and overrides.
Future developments
As ESG data volumes continue to grow, Rimes is investing in advanced data models to curate and organize that data. It is set to offer its clients data visualization and query capabilities that will allow them to answer complex ESG questions in a single command.
Future objectives include:
- Data discovery/dashboard capabilities, desktop tools and analytical APIs
- Expanded distribution of ESG data to clients’ downstream systems
“Mastering ESG data is a complex process and more challenging than most people realize, as it is not just about a pricing algorithm that picks the one best data point as a golden source. The ESG mastering exercise is about understanding ESG data, allowing for multiple sources of the truth and how data is propagated across the entity hierarchy. It is essential that someone really understands the actual data to master it―this is where the Rimes ESG team comes into its own.”
Elisabeth Seep, head of ESG, Rimes
Why they won
Rimes continues its impressive run of form in these awards by winning yet another category, thanks to its ESG Master offering, a managed service providing institutional investors with a single golden source of all their ESG data. There is little doubt that this new offering from the Rimes stable will strike a chord with large numbers of buy-side organizations, given the firm’s current client numbers, and the fact that over the years it has shown the market that it knows a thing or two about delivering world-class managed data services.
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