Shake To Shuffle

One realizes how fast 2013 is flying by when it becomes time to think about topics we will look at for projects and special reports next year. In reference data, it's become evident that some topics and trends that were once high on the agenda have, if not been solved, at least been addressed well enough to move on.

While developments such as implementation of the legal entity identifier (LEI), compliance with Basel III, Fatca and EMIR (European Market Infrastructure Regulation), and efforts to centralize data are very likely to stay high on the radar well into 2014, new developments such as the Investment Book of Record have been popping up as well.

Additionally, some topics have changed in shape—and the buzzwords or names of trends being used to describe them have changed accordingly. In thinking about next year's special reports, Inside Reference Data plans to reflect that, and may also bring in new topics to the year's roster.

Where are these changes happening? Enterprise data management (EDM), for one, has become more about data governance and data quality, along with big data. The flows produced by big data are making EDM more necessary, but concerns about data governance and data quality make those pre-requisites for any EDM plans.

Business entity data is another field on our list. But it has begun to go hand in hand with legal entity data and identifiers, or be dominated by that concern. While the LEI, particularly pre-LEI portals or ‘pre-LOUs' (local operating units), undoubtedly affects business entity data projects, data consistency remains a big issue within this topic.

Also on our horizon, and much sooner, is the Asia Pacific Financial Information Conference (APFIC) November 4-6 in Hong Kong. The perennial standards such as EDM, the LEI and big data are slated as themes within APFIC sessions, but some of the new terms and topics, namely data governance and data centralization, are now on the agenda. This demonstrates that the time to think in these terms and therefore, think ahead, is here.