Cossiom Taps MDSL for Niagara Access

French data user group Cossiom has enlisted UK-based data cost and contract management software vendor MDSL to provide the online front-end interface for the group's Niagara database of exchange data policies, officials say.

Cossiom approached MDSL in recent weeks, and the vendor aims to have the platform up and running within the next few months, which will provide a way for Niagara members to store and access exchange information in the standardized templates that member banks have been working to develop, says MDSL chief executive Ben Mendoza.

"Niagara members will be able to contribute information via the front-end, which we will update, process and distribute to other members. There will also be a query function that allows members to search for specific policies - for example, a service at a certain cost from an exchange that allows multi-vendor netting - while existing clients of our MDM product will be able to link into the platform and see how many of their staff use that service," Mendoza says.

This membership initially comprised Niagara's nine founder banks, though membership currently stands at 21 firms, which are responsible for introducing exchange information to the Niagara grid, and validating that information with exchanges. As a result, a number of exchanges expressed interest in updating their own policy information in Niagara, "to improve the effectiveness of the information they intend to broadcast to clients," and a handful are already updating the information themselves, thus automating the process of distributing exchange policy information across the Niagara membership, according to a Cossiom executive.

"At the moment, contract and policy - unit of count, IPR, redistribution rights-information is mainly copied manually from exchanges' websites into MDM by market data administration, operations and compliance personnel," the Cossiom executive says.

As exchanges become more comfortable using Niagara, they will be able to update their information themselves, which will automatically generate an update within the MDM system, so that user firms' data administrators need only accept the change, rather than sourcing the information themselves. The system will also generate exception reports summarizing every change that took place in a given month, which firms' market data management and compliance departments can use to update their records.

"So by automating the exchange policy update process, you are saving a lot of time by having no manual intervention - apart from the administrator's approval - while guaranteeing your compliance is always at the maximum level possible because you are following the letter of the policy provided by exchanges," the executive says.

Automated Reporting

In addition, linking the Niagara repository with MDSL's MDM tool will automate the process of reporting from applications and end-users. "It does assume that everyone applies and understands exchange policies in a consistent way," the Cossiom executive says. "For anyone who has reporting issues, this would allow them to close this kind of loop-not forgetting that it would expose their deficiencies, but would also allow them to rectify their practices to be fully compliant with exchange policies. The target is to have firms fully compliant with, and knowledgeable about, exchange policies under a common platform, contrary to what we have seen so far."

The Cossiom executive says the group chose MDSL initially because the majority of members already use the vendor's software, and because MDSL already has interfaces to the top exchanges worldwide. Mendoza says that users of other data inventory management systems, such as The Roberts Group's FITS or Screen Consultants' InfoMatch products, will also be able to connect to Niagara - though the Cossiom official says any other systems will need to be "sponsored" by a Niagara member - but that users of MDSL's MDM product will be able to derive greater functionality, including the ability to see which users subscribe to each service. "It will effectively be an add-on utility to our existing products. In database terms... it is not particularly hard to do," Mendoza says.