Q1. What part can industry utilities play in solving the reference data issues?
An industry utility can look to address many of the issues that exist as a consequence of bad reference data. Without an industry utility organisations are left to solve data issues for themselves when many of the problems and associated costs occur once data crosses organisational or geographical boundaries. An industry utility that takes an holistic approach - where all participants in the market can be both publishers and subscribers of the data - will result in a more transparent, consistent and higher quality data set.
Q2. Do you see the Utility as a SAAS or ASP model vs. home-grown solutions?
As a technology platform the Utility is deployed as SaaS. The difference being that it is a single, multi-tenanted solution rather than individually hosted solutions segregated by each individual client as in the ASP model. This single platform allows for substantial economies of scale to be shared across the participant community. The utility approach also offers process expertise not just a technology platform for the management of the reference data . The approach brings an economy of skill into the equation where dedicated data experts utilising industry best practice methodologies ensure the highest of data quality standards. The utility should go hand-in-hand with standards as regulatory approval will ultimately become one of the adoption drivers for such an approach.
Q3. Do you believe there is a need for a central Industry wide Free source? Are the definitions from the Utility, free for all?
There is definitely a need for a central industry wide utility but this will not be free of charge. The internet has become an excellent tool for externalising free data but most would argue the quality of the free data is very circumspect. We would prefer to see a model where all contributors of data are rewarded; where data sourced by a participant is used by others in the community and rated for quality by the community as well. The management of that data to ensure its quality and timeliness is also something that would need to be charged for.
Q4. Are trends like "Social Networking" influencing the way data/information is managed?
Absolutely. Industry or certain processes within an industry cannot be immune to the impact of such tools that are gaining an ever increasing acceptance across society as a whole. Internet-based public services and Web 2.0 technology has and will influence the way the business community looks to contribute, store, manage and distribute data. The industry also needs to be aware of how such tools might also become sources of data. There are already examples of information published on sites such as Twitter having been recognised as having an impact of stock prices
Q5.What do you believe will be the scope of data managed, timelines and challenges by the proposed Central?
The DClear central utility will manage all securities, legal entity and settlement instruction data. It will cover all asset classes across all regions and provide meta data for the sourcing of that data as well as a cross reference across all market codes. The utility is available today for certain aspects of reference data management and will be rolled out during 2010. Many challenges are faced, not least of which are industry challenges over the use and intellectual property of identifiers and the role of standards. Also some of the expectations of the politicians and regulators need to be reset to take into account the realities of the global market today.
