Firms fear that they are overpaying for data they do not need or use, says Roy Kirby at SIX in this FTF News Q&A.
Roy Kirby
(FTF News recently got time with Roy Kirby, head of core products at SIX, and explored some of the key findings from SIX’s Future of Finance 2025-26 survey and report. The fourth annual study in the Future of Finance series focuses on the expectations of senior executives overseeing the global financial services industry. The report covers changing market conditions, including the strong return of confidence among financial institutions worldwide since the last study. In his role at SIX, Kirby is part of the product propositions team and is responsible for identifying and responding to market trends and customer requirements. For this Q&A, Kirby takes questions about the following urgent subjects:
- Cost-Effective Data Acquisition
- Data Quality Under Accelerating T+1 Timelines
- Navigating Europe’s complex T+1 landscape
- SIX and issuer data for faster T+1 settlement
- The Demand for Pre‑trade Tax and Operational Checks
- Sub‑Three‑Second Transaction checks and
- Preparing for digital‑asset market infrastructure)
Q: How do you see firms cost‑effectively gathering all the different data types they need — regulatory, reference, historical, private equity, fixed income, and even tariffs — to support their securities operations?
A: The key phrase here is cost-effective.
We are seeing a clear trend where customers are questioning the value of the traditional ‘all‑you‑can‑eat’ enterprise data license, which often results in firms overpaying for data they do not need or use. As the industry moves toward modern data‑access models — especially A.I.‑ready MCP‑style integrations of high‑quality data sets — we expect a shift toward pay‑for‑what‑you‑need‑when‑you‑need‑it. This will help firms gain better cost control. Success depends on choosing the right high‑quality data sets and ensuring strong linkage based on trusted reference data points.
Q: As the T+1 push for shorter settlement in the U.K. and E.U. gathers momentum, how can securities firms be certain that their data is consistently clean and reliable?
A: T+1 compresses the operational window, meaning firms can no longer afford data breaks, stale updates, or poor reference data. Achieving consistently clean data requires partnering with providers who specialize in high‑quality data at scale. This is why many firms are now speaking directly with key providers such as SIX in dedicated T+1 working groups.
Q: T+1 across Europe will be a major challenge given the many jurisdictions, regulatory regimes, tax policies, and more. How can firms negotiate such complex data terrains?
A: Europe’s fragmentation makes T+1 compliance challenging. Firms can greatly reduce complexity by sourcing data from providers with direct, primary access to the data at the time of issuance combined with knowledge of regulatory and tax impact.
Q: What is SIX doing regarding T+1 settlement and fixed‑income issuers?
A: SIX has been re‑engineering how it receives fixed income new‑issue data and now has direct access to bonds on issuance from the top 30+ global bond syndicators, reducing dependency on secondary sources.
Q: What is SIX doing regarding T+1 settlement and issuers of structured products?
A: SIX is handling the instrument opening for over 400 issuers of structured products. A high automation rate by using the Connexor IBT tool guarantees timely and complete opening of products with regulatory-relevant content within T+1 timeframes.
Q: Why are firms asking for pre‑trade checks now, and how is it done?
A: There have been a number of industry studies that show a shift in what end-clients expect from wealth‑management firms — they now expect wider coverage and choice of financial instruments into which they can invest.
That expansion means that instrument suitability, viewed through multiple lenses such as performance, peer groups, regulatory, and tax attributes, is now needed before trades are executed. Firms are embedding these near-real-time suitability checks into workflows through APIs [application programming interfaces] and enriched reference data.
Q: Is it possible to check aspects of a securities transaction and get an answer within 2.5 seconds?
A: Yes. Modern API-style deployments and architecture allow rule checks and eligibility lookups alongside regulatory and tax validations, well within this performance window.
SIX is already supporting clients with high‑speed API‑based enrichment models.
Q: How can conventional securities firms develop and manage the data demands of new digital‑asset infrastructures?
A: The first thing they need to accept is that they are already exposed to digital asset regulation, such as CARF [the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework] and MiCAR [Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation].
To meet these regulations, they require richer metadata, lifecycle transparency, provenance tracking, and event‑driven updates.
In terms of transaction reporting, firms need to be prepared to work with new identifiers such as the Digital Token Identifier (DTI) and specific regulatory reporting classifications. Firms can prepare by partnering with providers that understand both traditional and digital‑asset data models. SIX is well-positioned in this area.
(The full report can be found here: https://shorturl.at/WsglH )
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