Data Management 101

A community blog about data and how to manage it

Retired Member 

Over The Counter Arguments

George Soros has waded back into the current saga concerning OTC derivatives in his article last week in the FT. The main part of the article focusses on financial markets reform, but ends with a vehement attack on derivatives, building upon some of his earlier ideas (see post) and seemingly going much further: "Finally, I have strong views ...

02 July 2009 /regulation /wholesale

Elizabeth Lumley Global FinTech Commentator at Girl, Disrupted

It's the Data, Stupid

One of my former collegues once started a panel discussion on buy side technology by saying "Technology means nothing unless it has a business use." He had a very valid point. The trendiest, up to the minute technology is all fine and dandy, but if you can't trade, invest, process with it--who cares? The same can be said for data. There i...

01 July 2009 /regulation

Retired Member 

Risk in the Hands of the Holder?

Given the ongoing debate about "too big to fail" and whether we should head back to the days of the Glass-Steagal Act, then here is a slightly different slant on the problem of systematic risk put forward in an article by Avinash D. Persaud. In the article, Avinash makes the very good point that increasing capital requirements across th...

30 June 2009 /regulation /wholesale

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

Data Security Myth

There has been no end of stories over recent years about the ability of companies and organisations to maintain their data security. Bad news always travels faster than good and we will only ever know about the instances where data security is breached rather than the majority of occasions when data is secure but the quest to achieve total securit...

26 May 2009 /regulation /retail

Gert Raeves Research Director at Adox Research Limited

It always is, was and will be about the Data, Stupid

Apparently, more than 40% of senior bankers believe better data quality and availability are really quite important to improve risk management. So many cliches, such lack of imagination and inventiveness, such an overdose of the obvious remedies. A story like this comes along every few weeks - and every time I read one I have to resist the temptati...

07 May 2009 /wholesale

Gert Raeves Research Director at Adox Research Limited

Standards - continuation of war via other means?

Wouldn't it be nice to have everyone speak the same language? Definitely no political motive - move right along - nothing to see here. Just trying to make sure we agree a common phrasebook. Simply giving the people access to markets in open and transparent way, and make it easy to use new shiny order management tools to route deal flow to the mos...

03 March 2009 /regulation

Gert Raeves Research Director at Adox Research Limited

Silent Killers of our time - Burgers and Spreadsheets

A recent Tabb report ‘The Enterprise Spreadsheet: Pushing towards Transparency’ highlights how firms continue to rely on spreadsheets at every level - serving as the modelling laboratory, negotiation tool, trade capture software, books and records, and as an input into almost every post-trade process. This is not a new problem, but you would thi...

03 March 2009 /regulation

Gert Raeves Research Director at Adox Research Limited

Stop Press - Risk manager dismissed for managing risk

The latest twists in the Paul Moore story (fascinating memo in full on FT site) are extraordinary - and reinforces that risk management is central to one of the Great Credit Crunch Conundrums. What were all the risk managers doing while all around them the Romans were piling up the firewood? The recent KPMG survey highlights that they spent most o...

12 February 2009 /regulation /wholesale

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

Data Integration a way towards consolidation and reduction

At the FIMA conference this week in London, where I was speaking and chairing an afternoon session, the issue of Data Integration was debated, pulled apart and assessed by a whole range of expert people representing all links in the industry data chain. After two arduous days the results were disappointing. Everyone agrees that there is a ‘mass' o...

14 November 2008 /regulation

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

It is not the risks we know that should worry us

There have been countless risk conferences and countless hours spent by risk managers over the years on the importance of understanding and mitigating risks in the markets. The sad fact is that recent events prove we know very little about risks in today's financial services and the system solutions that we all thought were providing some means of...

07 November 2008 /security /regulation