To support trading decisions is high quality, reliable and timely market data is a must for investment banks, but it is expensive. In 2014, global spend for market data and analysis increased by 4.1 percent on the previous year. By far, the most expensive slice of market data is real-time data supplied to the front-office.
GreySpark Partners observed that all capital markets trading firms perceive the task of switching vendors as a complex one. The cost of changing to a new supplier, in terms of implementing the interfaces right across the bank, the development of new processes and – not least – retraining the user base can be prohibitively expensive. However, significant savings can be made by migrating some users over to an alternative vendor’s offering.
This report was produced to help financial institutions develop a list of vendors that can provide data for the right asset class and instruments in the right geographies. Data coverage maps for static data, historical data and real-time (raw, normalised and conflated) data are incorporated.
The report concludes with advice on the main criteria to consider when selecting market data vendors.