Vendors Lay Out Their Plans for Reference-Data Services
SunGard Feels the Data Pains of Its Clients
On Oct. 11, SunGard announced it was coming to market with referencePoint Managed Data Service, which is based on the referencePoint solution (acquired with Fame Information Services).
SunGard plans to start with a pricing service across the fixed income and equities data, "which is a bit of an easy win," says SunGard's Richards. Beyond that, it involves some indicative data and reference information in terms of cross-referencing capabilities and securities master and mapping feeds in a central facility, says Richards. "In order to produce a key source of pricing data, you don't need the whole thing to get off the ground," says Richards, who at the same time announced that Banc of America Securities was joining an advisory panel to help map out the service for the industry. SunGard has been eyeing the data-management business for four years, says Richards, partly because its own software applications need data to operate. SunGard has the same data issues as its clients, adds Richards, noting that the vendor spends $10 million to $20 million a year on FT Interactive Data, which doesn't include what it pays to manage the data.
This led to SunGard's acquisition of Fame, which had a data-services division and could be used to centralize data internally and validate the market utility, says Richards. Fame had a business called Site Server that took in data sources like Bloomberg and EJV and interfaced them to data distribution systems such as Tibco and Triarch, and handled entitlements and storage in a data warehouse. "We're starting from an advantageous position in terms of being in that space," says Richards, who emphasizes that SunGard really knows data at the record level.
Aside from taking the best pieces out of Fame's data loading and data storage and distribution technology, SunGard is utilizing its corporate software assets: SunGard's referencePoint solution is based on an Oracle database, and it is integrated with SunGard components that are already in place, says Richards, including a rules-based technology, compliance managed networks and disaster recovery.
However, vendors are aware that financial services companies are not going to throw all their reference data over the wall. They are looking at providing a range of customized outsourcing, value-added data packages or technology alone, depending on the needs and comfort level of clients. Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio
Tweet This