September 2018: Getting Your Money’s Worth

As I write this, we just wrapped up the 2018 European Financial Information Summit. I mean that quite literally—I’ve kicked off my heels and am sipping a cup of tea before heading upstairs to collapse into bed.

The day was long, but it flew by, as events tend to do when their agendas are abundant with valuable information. Our EFIS producers introduced some new elements to this year’s summit. Two of the keynote speakers were from out of the industry—data pros hailing from Uber and Virgin Atlantic—and we unveiled a new mentorship program where delegates at any level of their careers were granted unprecedented access to wisdom and advice from chief data officers and vice presidents. Networking opportunities were baked into every element of EFIS, from our name badges, designed to exchange contact information by via a tap together, to the ribbons those badges dangled from, color-coded to indicate areas of interest.

Last year, our managing editor, Max Bowie, chaired the event and I attended in a journalist capacity. This year, it was my turn to step behind the podium, a vantage point from which it was easy to identify the day’s themes. Governance, collaboration, flexibility, and the importance of building a business case for data functions were topics that arose over and over, whether I was listening to a panel discussion on artificial intelligence applications or a regulatory keynote by the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) team leader Olga Petrenko, whose meticulously organized presentation and rapid-fire speaking style allowed her to pack a week’s worth of information into a half-hour speech.

You will recognize those themes in our September issue, as well. Wei-Shen Wong provides an analysis of why organizations hoping to cure regulatory compliance headaches through automation must first take inventory of their data lineage. Max Bowie sounds the alarm on a shift toward giving firms more control over their data networks, a trend that will grant financial clients unprecedented control over provisioning and configuring network services, provided they have the flexibility to manage the change.

And in an article pulled directly from EFIS, Amelia Axelsen reports on a panel that became heated, wherein a group of market data managers expressed their frustration with data vendors’ practices and pricing, arguing that they are crippled by shady negotiation practices and outdated pricing models, and calling upon regulators to crack down.