Reference Data Technology special report

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What Drives Data Tech?

Cost and efficiency are consistently touted as the two opposing forces affecting reference data technology decisions, as addressed in responses to the first question in the Virtual Roundtable feature of this special report (page 8). Still, it's curious that cloud resources, as far as reference data professionals are concerned, remain on the back burner as a result of data security concerns, despite their great potential for reducing costs and boosting efficiency. Adam Cottingham of SmartStream points out in the Roundtable that cloud-based services must be agile to succeed-advice that cloud services providers would do well to heed.

With new types of data continually arriving and driving up the volume of reference data that firms must manage, integrating all of these can become an "insurmountable" obstacle, Cottingham says. A centralized data policy could be a solution, as could making data utility models more flexible.

Brian Buzzelli, head of enterprise data management for the Americas at Nomura, who has extensive experience on both the provider and user sides, sees vendors keeping pace with the increased complexity through new capabilities, he tells us in the Roundtable. The regulatory boom that has spawned the CICI and LEI identifiers will have a positive effect, Buzzelli believes. Reference data technology projects created for compliance purposes are an opportunity to reviewdata platforms, flows and operations methods, he says.

The strongest driver for reference data might be something else entirely, though. Consultant Ed Ventura, in the closing Q&A of this report (page 14), identifies "Wall Street attitude" as the biggest push for creating new technology in this space. Regulation could just be the helping hand.

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