Designed to overcome data obstacles to STP, ACDEX operates as a centralised data management utility that manages the quality, integrity and distribution of securities related data from multiple sources. The launch comes a week after Reuters and Capco took the wraps off Synetix an STP joint venture company, and its first reference data management product.

Data discrepancies among systems and institutions cause trade failures and breaches in straight-through processing (STP). A recent study by Reuters and Capco identified reference data problems as a leading cause of trade failures.

Ger Rosenkamp, CEO of Asset Control, comments: “ACDEX offers the option of outsourcing both the R&D and daily overhead of securities data management. And possibly more important, it offers the industry a cost-effective vehicle for creating consistency among institutions.”

ACDEX, which operates on Sun Solaris servers, requires no reengineering of incumbent applications and data distribution architecture, says Rosenkamp, but instead distributes data to customers’ middleware, applications or other data servers in the form needed by the recipient.

The vendor says the first ACDEX customers are scheduled to go live in Q3 2002. Current Asset Control customers include Abbey National, ABN AMRO, Bankgesellschaft Berlin, Barclays Capital, BBVA, Commerzbank, Dresdner Bank, Hamburgischelandes Bank, HypoVereinsbank, and ING.

Martin Kruit, head of reference data at ABN Amro in Amsterdam, comments: “After several years of using Asset Control, our expertise now extends beyond basic data management to proprietary data enhancements, as well as developing new applications for using the data. We are interested in the idea of outsourcing the everyday data management, so that our internal resources can be devoted to activities that build competitive advantage.”