BST Awards 2024: Best buy-side evaluated pricing service—CanDeal Data and Analytics (DNA)

The solution

The CanDeal DNA Reference Pricing Service uses unique data sources, governance, domestic market conventions and proprietary methodologies to publish accurate, intraday pricing, analytics and security master data for approximately 100,000 Canadian fixed-income securities and overnight index swap (OIS) rates. The service is designed to help buy-side firms that previously struggled to value fixed-income holdings accurately to the traded market, which increased their risk exposure and changed how they access, analyze and create strategies for Canadian fixed-income and interest rate derivative (IRD) markets.

Secret sauce  

Now available with hourly updates and standard analytics, CanDeal DNA Reference Pricing Service enables price discovery and pre- and post-trade analytics, while minimizing benchmark tracking error and optimizing returns on a per security or holdings basis. Available via ICE, LSEG, FTSE Russell, SS&C, S&P Global and Fundata, buy-side participants active in Canadian fixed-income markets gain access to coverage for all Canadian money market and bond types, supported by a transparent price challenge process.

Recent milestones

• CanDeal DNA was selected by the Bank of Canada and Carr Group as the calculation agent for the new Term Corra benchmark rates. It released its CanDeal DNA Consensus OIS and swaps rates product in support of Term Corra.
• Released CanDeal DNA Trademarks Product with cash/repo trade data and CanDeal DNA Eligible Collateral product using Bank of Canada Standing Liquidity Facility (BOC SLF)
• Added hourly updates between 8 am and 5 pm ET, implemented on a T+1 basis

Future objectives

• CanDeal will utilize its proprietary data resources and products to enhance insights into the volatility, liquidity, tracking error, and trading costs of its buy-side clients’ investment management strategies.
• CanDeal plans to add new tools for securities finance, including publishing prevailing securities lending rates and relative value for total return swaps for the eligible universe of Canadian fixed-income securities.
• CanDeal will increase the update frequency around delivering streaming updates for its pricing universe.

Why they won

A year ago, CanDeal won its first ever WatersTechnology award when it emerged top in the super-competitive best buy-side evaluated pricing service category of the 2023 BST Awards, which it followed up six months later by walking away with the best evaluated pricing service provider/vendor category of the annual Inside Market Data and Inside Reference Data Awards. The Toronto-based evaluated pricing specialist is at it again, winning the evaluated pricing category for the second successive year in these awards and in doing so demonstrating its leadership position in its chosen market and its commitment to innovation and solving real-world problems for its buy-side clients.

In some respects, extrapolating prices for hard-to-value securities is much like high-school mathematics in that providing a number is not sufficient—you must be able to show the examiner how you arrived at that number, which is where CanDeal excels in the Canadian fixed-income markets. Not only does it provide its clients with the assumptions that underpin its pricing methodologies, but crucially, it also offers a price challenge process whereby it will furnish details of its calculations in the event that clients require them.

At the conclusion of the “why they won” section in last year’s category write-up, we asked the question: Who would bet against CanDeal doubling up on this win in next year’s awards? After this win, that questions becomes: Who would bet against CanDeal winning this category three times on the bounce?