Best Reference Data Initiative: S&P Global Market Intelligence

S&P Global Market Intelligence wins the Best Reference Data Initiative award for its Cross-Reference Services, which seamlessly link reference data by company, sector and instrument, and significantly reduce the inefficiencies associated with manual assimilation of diverse datasets. 

“Clients want to spend less time linking data and more time gaining insights. Our Cross-Reference Services’ linking capabilities bring data together in a structured way to enable clients to get more out of the data,” says Warren Breakstone, managing director and chief product officer of data management solutions at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Cross-Reference Services comprise the Business
Entity Cross-Reference Service (BECRS), the Global Instruments Cross-Reference Service (GICRS) and the Industry Sector Cross-Reference Service. All products have been built on the backbone of a shared data layer, which passes data to Xpressfeed and links every identifier to a unique S&P Global Market Intelligence identifier.

BECRS provides clients with cross-reference capabilities to millions of public and private entities using standardized and proprietary identifiers such as global legal entity identifier codes, ratings agency identifiers, Markit Red ID, D&B DUNS ID and Tax ID. 

The company says that, prior to subscribing to BECRS, many clients manually maintained their own linking for mapping entities to issuers, which was a time-consuming and costly endeavor. With BECRS, clients can use S&P Global Market Intelligence’s data mapping to systematically update and maintain the multifaceted relationships within a corporate hierarchy.

In addition, GICRS resolves the varying securities numbering problems in a global trading and processing environment. Clients can access a database of security identifiers cross-referencing more than 51 million global instruments. As a result, both middle-and back-office institutions can streamline their operations and create customized data-mapping systems for securities and trading items. 

S&P Global Market Intelligence has consistently made enhancements to its Cross-Reference Services, and 2018 was no exception. For instance, it expanded BECRS’ global legal entity identifier coverage to include the majority of issuing local operating units. It also extended GICRS’ coverage from around 40 million to more than 50 million securities with additional asset types, including municipals, mortgage-backed securities, commercial papers and loans. Today there are more than 200 million locally and globally recognized identifiers.

Over the coming months, S&P Global Market Intelligence will continue to expand Cross-Reference Services’ coverage to include more securities and identifiers, Breakstone says. Introducing more private companies will also be a key area of focus. 

Read more about the Inside Market Data & Inside Reference Data Awards 2019 winners