Data Management and Governance Seeing Processing Transformations

The undercurrent within data management and governance revealed in stories in this month's issue of Inside Reference Data is that some industry data executives and service providers are thinking and acting on plans to transform data processing structures.

Tinku Gupta, head of market data and connectivity at the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), is planning a new data platform to better accommodate trading operations upgrade projects that are already underway, as she relates. Also, in a corporate actions processing upgrade already completed at SGX over the past year, Gupta found a way to accommodate a requirement to keep PDFs while distributing information in ISO 20022 format at the same, without slowing down the process.

A more theoretical, but still compelling possibility, is the idea of using a "hub and spoke" approach to managing data needed for compliance with several different newer regulations, as FactSet's director of regulatory solutions, Anastasia Dokuchaeva, proposes. "Hub and spoke" groups together data relevant to different regulations, whether that data is symbology, taxonomy, instrument and entity reference data, relationship information or hierarchies, and puts it all in a hub. Addressing compliance with MiFID II, BCBS 239 stress tests, AIFMD or other rules, sets out each of these responsibilities as spokes, and distributes the common information outward. As Dokuchaeva writes, this turns big data into "smart data."

In another realm of data management concerns, evaluated pricing consumers might also benefit from a hub and spoke approach, since it appears that many are most concerned with ensuring that multiple sources are used to improve accuracy, as reported here. Raising the quality of evaluated pricing data requires a matrix approach, as Smith and Williamson's Gary Pringle says. "We need multiple ways of sourcing, multiple avenues of getting that data," he says. Variances in coverage of instruments may complicate matters and require more "deep dives," and Thomson Reuters itself is working on ways to anticipate this, as pricing executive Robert Vincini also relates in this story.

Of course, all the most efficient and adept data management and processing can be for naught if it is not protected. Joanna Wright uncovers how data sharing can bolster cyber security for data operations - a counter-intuitive idea - in her feature story. Standing at the vanguard of this idea is Soltra, a cyber security defense provider spun out of DTCC five years ago, to carry out the mechanics of sharing information about cyber threats. In effect, Soltra, through its Edge product and messaging standards for sharing information, is carving out a new category of reference data - a collection of "threat actor information," as CEO Mark Clancy calls it - that is likely to grow.

Lastly, this issue contains several reports on issues raised during last month's Sibos conference. For another perspective on those matters, please also read "Requiem For Sibos."