Data Utilities special report

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Learning to Share

When I went to visit a bank to spend some time with their data analysts a few years back, I remember being excited about seeing a clever web link from the address field in the counterparty data management system to the UK postal organization Royal Mail's website. When analysts clicked the link, the address was automatically converted to the UK standard address format and verified. This feature enabled the data analysts to tap into data already aggregated and normalized by the Royal Mail. The reason I got so excited to see this was that it was my first experience with a utility approach, as postal services organizations could be seen as acting as utilities of address information.

When it comes to finding addresses, it is pretty standard to rely on postal services to have the correct information. Few would find it necessary to source this information elsewhere when the data is sourced and maintained by one reliable organization servicing a large number of customers. This is exactly what is needed in the reference data market in general. The data quality issue is increasingly viewed as being too big for one organization to fix on its own, and a recent WatersTechnology survey found that there are now more firms that would want to leverage a shared service than there are firms that want to do it all internally.

Firms are increasingly realizing there is no need for every firm to duplicate the work. It is about time to take the next step, and that step means replicating some of the concepts already recognized in other industries, such as postal services. It's not only about address information though. It's about various types of securities reference data and counterparty data that can be taken from a utility to share costs between many organizations and improve quality.

Right now, it sounds obvious that the Royal Mail is the only organization that needs to update addresses and firms can link into that database to ensure their information is correct too. At some point in the future, it will probably be as obvious that certain types of reference data are processed by one provider instead of being aggregated, normalized and enriched by every financial organization.

In this special report, Inside Reference Data has gathered the latest research on the topic and advice from industry experts on moving to a utility model.

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If you would like us to create a custom special report for your firm on a key topic area to suit your business needs, please contact Jo Webb on +44 (0)20 7316 9474 or jo.webb@incisivemedia.com