GoldenSource in the last two weeks participated in the A-Team Data Management Summit and the Incisive Media North American Financial Information Summit. Both are great places for our community to come together to discuss the issues and ideas which are keeping everyone up at night. Topics like risk, regulation, the importance of counterparty data, data quality, data governance, outsourcing…
Are these new topics?
Look at the agendas from similar events three, five, even 10 years ago and you’ll likely find exactly the same topics. But, what was clear from the conversation in 2014 is that we’re in a much different (and better) place than we were in 2004.
It’s nice to take a moment to step back and recognize what progress has been made.
My thoughts echo those of data governance expert and advisory consultant Ed Ventura, who commented at one of the events that even though the topics are the same, we’re now talking about what we’ve achieved so far, rather than about figuring out what we need to do.
Some good examples:
- Data vendors and software vendors alike recognize that regulatory requirements are market requirements, requiring market-standard solutions rather than treating them as customization requests for each client.
- The industry is arriving at consensus on a fundamental need – a common business language for reference data attributes and relationships. FIBO is here, and it is no longer just a theoretical exercise.
- Real financial institutions with real cost pressures have charted the path to increase efficiency, reduce cost, and increase data quality by reducing from more than 10 separate security masters into one – by taking it in small chunks at a time and showing direct business benefits from every step.
- Service models for reference data – such as what IBM and GoldenSource are doing with the IBM Global Data Utility – are dramatically different in service model, value proposition, and flexibility than the earlier attempts at a mutualized reference data utility.
Now, we move forward. With the industry making great strides in real-world execution on these subjects today, it will be interesting to see where we will be and what we’re talking about in 2017, 2019, or 2024.