Xenomorph and S&P Capital IQ Deliver Enterprise Data Solutions

Xenomorph, a risk data management provider, has built a connector between its TimeScape mutli-source data platform and S&P Capital IQ, provider of multi-asset class and real time data, research and analytics. The agreement is aimed at speeding the development of trading strategies and providing mutual clients with more efficient management of complex data.

Brian Sentance, CEO of Xenomporh, explains in an interview, "We've had some interest from clients in terms of connecting up more fundamentals and balance sheets, production data and accounting data so people can potentially look at a particular security, or they can look at all securities in relations to their particular company." The goal of the user is to try to understand their relationship to instruments, and in regards to balance sheet data from S&P, benchmark and see what arbitrage opportunities are across the sectors. "It's not necessarily big data but more detailed data and establishing data across technology."

In the press release, Sentance says, “The benefits to end users are tangible, including spending less time on validating data and more time spent on developing trading strategies; switching with ease between and among asset classes, and integrating complex data and products into core systems within minutes.”

When you look at data integration problems today, they stem from a history of obtaining data sets in different business lines, with each department asking for new stuff. The legacy of the industry isn't helpful to business users who basically don't have the skill or time, or even care about integration, they just want to consume and look at data any way or shape in which they can.

Sentance explains Timescape delivers pre-packaged integration, helping to make data set look the same so it's easy for the end user to manipulate and concentrate on which business value they want to extract, without understanding all systems. Clients can choose which data is made available through the connector. "It's a sign of the times. Business are now looking to data wanting to see in its entirety, because there is value of higher level view of all these integrated data sets. In the past, they were all thought of as separate."

Tim Walker, managing director with S&P Capital IQ, adds in the interview, "It's a constant problem… Banks and investment managers want to do what they do, senior folks don't want unnecessary costs on data integration if they can avoid it. It's always been big problem because of the lack of standards… you see the same problems as you did 10+ years ago due to the massive overuse of excel as an integration tool." Sentance adds, "We try to take data that TimeScape provides and give the flexibility of spreadsheet combined with control of what you get with a combined data warehouse approach." Becca Lipman is Senior Editor for Wall Street & Technology. She writes in-depth news articles with a focus on big data and compliance in the capital markets. She regularly meets with information technology leaders and innovators and writes about cloud computing, datacenters, ... View Full Bio