GoldenSource, A-Team Survey Defines Data Management Issues

Investment banks, hedge funds, broker/dealers and asset managers are actively seeking data consistency, according to a survey released by reference data management vendor GoldenSource and consulting firm A-Team this week at the SIFMA show. "We're seeing an evolution in the market," says Paul Kennedy, vice president of product management at GoldenSource. "Firms are seeing data management as more than a technology issue, but becoming more of a business and process issue."To that point, the 40 survey respondents identified their biggest problems in maintaining reference data as first, harmonizing data models, second, applying enterprise-wide standard policies, and third, linking securities to entities.

The second major theme that emerged from the survey results, Kennedy says, is the difficulty of managing complex instruments such as derivatives, collateralized mortgage obligations, credit default swaps and the like. "These more complex products are creating a murkier scenario that calls for better reference data models," he says. Asked which data types they found most difficult to source and manage, 42% of survey respondents said futures, options and OTC derivatives; 23% said fixed income products in general; 22% said structured products; and 13% said foreign exchange.