Best Market Data Provider (Exchange): Intercontinental Exchange and New York Stock Exchange

Following the merger with NYSE in 2013, ICE boosted its information business with the acquisition of derivatives pricing systems provider SuperDerivatives in 2014, and then with the acquisition of data giant Interactive Data in 2015. In other words, ICE Data, launched in 2003, has come a long way from comprising only exchange data to now offering a broad range of data products, including market data from ICE, the NYSE and Liffe exchanges, as well as data centers and related infrastructure.

Lynn Martin, president and COO, ICE Data Services, says: “With this strong base to build on, we acquired Interactive Data, as it represented an opportunity to further expand the range of services we can provide to our customers. These include industry-leading evaluated prices, reference data and valuation services—which is a nice complement to our SuperDerivatives business—and a range of desktop, feeds and connectivity services.”

The Interactive Data acquisition has already borne fruit—one example is that the exchange launched its first set of ICE US Treasury Indices based on Interactive Data’s track record of fixed-income evaluations in February. These have become the benchmark for some of BlackRock’s iShares exchange-traded funds, highlighting how the formation of the new entity can benefit customers going forward. On the NYSE side, the exchange has a new version of its desktop NYSE Connect, powered by the Interactive Data’s Market-Q platform, as well as a new data feed licensing tool, created to focus on the user experience and help simplify the workflow for clients.