The proliferation of fragmented IT and data platforms contributed to the financial crisis, according to research looking at data management strategies from Thomson Reuters and Lepus, a London-based independent research consultancy.
As a result of this, 77% of over 100 surveyed investment banks and buy-side firms plan on increasing their spending on projects that address data quality and consistency issues, with 32% saying this spend would increase significantly.
The Thomson Reuters/Lepus report also claims that firms are looking beyond their data silos to integrating existing data repositories among their business groups. They require streamlined infrastructure and 'golden copy' repositories that will link counterparty, reference data and front-office securities pricing to downstream functions. Survey participants say they have had promising starts in linking data management initiatives to risk management, regulatory compliance and clearing processes.
Risk management is the main driver for these data integration projects. Around 87.25% of firms are looking to integrate data repositories in risk management, while 62.5% say they are either close or very close to achieving a single, so-called 'golden copy' for their trading and transaction data types.
Jason du Preez, global business manager, Enterprise Platform for Data Management, Thomson Reuters, says: "As the economy recovers, financial institutions are looking to improve and simplify data operations by demanding greater consistency and quality of data across the front, middle and back-office."