Guest Contributor: By David Priestly, CEO of OpenLink’s CubeIntelligence Division Every so often, markets become dominated by so called “disruptive technology” solutions that offer a genuine order of magnitude improvement in functionality, speed, flexibility and cost. Cubes or OLAP (online analytical processing), which are the cornerstone of all good business intelligence platforms, are threatening traditional
Financial Technology
Finding Creative Ways to Take Out Costs
Guest Contributor: Nick Jackson, Partner, Capco Financial institutions continue to face tremendous pressures to reduce costs. Since the credit crisis began, banks have reduced headcount, re–engineered processes and introduced LEAN and Six Sigma methodologies in an effort to lower costs and maintain or grow revenue. Most banks have exhausted the low-hanging fruit cost-reduction efforts available
Data Management
The LEI: A Building Block for Enhanced Data and Risk Management
Guest Contributor: Marty Williams, Vice President, Reference Data Product Development, Interactive Data Corporation’s Pricing and Reference Data Business The introduction of a standardized Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) could deliver significant benefits beyond allowing regulators to more accurately monitor systemic risk. While we are at the beginning of a journey toward what could become a global
Data Management
Get You Some Big Data Strategy
Guest Contributor: Julio Gomez, General Manager, Financial Services Attivio and Co-Founder, Innovation Councils I just had dinner with an IT exec from a financial institution, and heard a common lament: “This Big Data thing is driving me crazy. Everyone has an opinion about what it means, and what needs to be done. It’s hard to
Guest Blog
Driving Down the Successful Middle Office Outsourcing Transition Highway
Guest Contributor: Philip Sindel, President & CEO, Olmstead Associates, Inc. We have learned a couple of things over the past several years. First, investment managers are more willing to consider outsourcing middle and back office functions. The slow and uneven recovery has focused continual attention on expense management. The typical asset management business model will
Guest Blog
The Blue Collar Comedy Market Structure
Guest Contributor: Adam Honoré, Research Director, Aite Group Could we work in an industry right now that does more to make itself look technically inept than capital markets? Facebook, BATS, Knight Capital, anything Bart Chilton says (kidding, sort of). We’ve set up a market structure with over 40 equity liquidity points in various points in
Data Management
Manage Your Data Vendors to Improve Quality and Reduce Total Cost
Guest Contributor: Thomas C. Redman, “The Data Doc”, Navesink Consulting Group Financial institutions need high-quality data, about markets, counterparties, and so forth, acquired from outside. Most follow the so-called “golden copy” approach. They obtain data from many sources, compare them, pick the one that they think most likely correct, and anoint it as “golden.” Good
Guest Blog
Machine Readable News
Guest Blogger: Lynn Connolly, Director of Risk Management Advisory at Constellation Investment Consulting Corp With the increase in algorithmic and high-frequency trading, there has also been an increase in machine readable news services which attempt to gauge market sentiment and assist in measuring the impact news has on the marketplace in real-time. These technology services
Corporate Actions
Securing an IT Budget for a Corporate Actions Project
Guest Blogger: Kevin Cullen, Communications & Marketing Director at Information Mosaic Since the financial downturn, getting budget for any project seems harder than ever. With the renewed emphasis on regulation, risk mitigation, and data standardization, the focus may have turned away from front-office and trading to the middle-office and post-trade areas. In the case of
Guest Blog
LEI’s Could Undershoot
Guest Blogger: Gary Wright MCSI, CEO, B.I.S.S. Research LEIs (Legal Entity Identifiers) are becoming the most talked about acronym of today but could lose out if the development of the standard is limited to too narrow a focus. In the securities market I have been on the trail of LEIs for over twenty years, first
