Blogs

Standard identifiers are playing an increasingly important role in finance and trade globally. TFG’s Deepesh Patel heard from Richard Young at FIGI (Bloomberg).

Come January 3, 2018, data issues with ISIN, CFI and FISN may come knocking. And end up impacting firms in ways they didn't anticipate or plan for.

With the huge dependence on ISIN for all things driving MiFID II reporting (ToTV, SI, and so forth), data quality is of the utmost importance. Therefore, it should be concerning if that data is not available or otherwise unreliable for the existing listed market.........................................

Data management is evolving as a critical business function and properly identifying financial instruments is now a top priority for data and risk management professionals.

Given the advocacy to promote adoption and promulgation of standards, there is a reality to address. Theoretically, a single overarching standard for everything - how and what we trade, buy, sell, execute and identify - would create a homogenous and equal society. But in reality, there needs to be recognition of a few important points.

Serving the needs of a specific community, standards can have significant positive effect not just for that group, but also on society as a whole. But the establishment of standards should always be weighed against the potential for improper commercial exploitation, possible barriers to change and the cost implications associated with revising an existing standard versus adopting something new. Given this, we should examine the organizations that create and maintain standards. First, there is no global standards-setting authority and no federation that coordinates all the various standards efforts. In the majority of cases, participants are volunteers with their time and effort effectively donated by individual firms for the greater good.

Financial institutions continue to take a tactical rather than strategic approach to data management for multiple regulations, but change is on the way and will be discussed during a panel session on the challenges and opportunities of incoming regulation at this week's A-Team Group Data Management Summit in London.

Our world is constantly evolving. There is a point where existing standards have served their purpose, but to evolve and advance, there are new standards that must come into being. This is especially true in the area of information.

A LinkedIn article by leading technology analyst Bob OâDonnell about the promise and confusion of USB Type-C reminded me of the challenges and conflicting issues that often arise when trying to create a standard.

Many people in the market seem to have a misunderstanding about what ISINs (International Securities Identification Numbers) are, how they work and what they can be used for. Below are links to a series of Finextra articles that explain how they work.

The open source Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI), formerly the Bloomberg Global Identifier (BBGID), is coming closer to being a primary security identifier following its inclusion in the ISO 20022 external code set for financial instrument identification and its formal approval as a standard by the Object Management Group (OMG).

Last Monday, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published technical standards that describe how regulations such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) and the Central Securities Depositaries Regulation (CSDR) will apply in practice to market participants. The technical standards document includes guidance for data usage and messaging solutions for cross-asset trade reporting requirements stipulated by these new regulations. It was a monumental effort to pull together guidance to help harmonize the objectives of these new regulations and improve market place transparency and efficiency. At the same time, some guidance in ESMA's directive is puzzling and even concerning.

Joining Bloomberg I have never taken job changes lightly, but with this particular move, I was particularly focused. I had finally found out what I wanted to do with my life. Data had been part of things I had done all along my career, but suddenly, data was cool. Data was at the forefront. Firms finally seemed serious about data, not as a necessary evil, but as an asset...

Bloomberg's Christopher Pickles, of the Open Symbology team, recently published a blog post on the Asia ETrading site, discussing a variety of topics related to the complexity of reporting on, and identifying, instruments using existing identifier systems. He then discusses the use of the Financial Industry Global Identifier (FIGI), an emerging open standard spearheaded by Bloomberg and adopted by dozens of exchanges and data providers around the world.