Bloomberg PolarLake

The client, a global Asset Management firm headquartered in the United Kingdom was faced with increasing difficulties in efficiently managing their data vendor feeds.

Data requests were becoming so involved and lengthy that start of day process times were being missed and business processes delayed creating operational risk issues.

Incorrect request methods were also limiting the number and type of feed attributes which could be requested and as a result new business activities were blocked.

Within a four week period, the client was actively using the Bloomberg Data Management Utility Vendor Feed Management Service to manage their Bloomberg Data License requests.

As a result:

• Data request times were reduced by 500% immediately removing the start of day blockages.
• Client portfolio management and investment accounting systems were directly requesting data five times per day matching the client’s regional business patterns
• Attribute barriers were removed enabling new business processes to be introduced at speed
• A complete vendor feed data management, governance and audit environment was in place

The client, an internationally renowned tier one auditor, was faced with increasing business demand to perform transaction and portfolio valuation checks, which in turn required the acquisition and management of historical global pricing, reference, and ratings data across an extensive number of securities and asset classes.

The client selected Bloomberg PolarLake to deliver an Historical Market Data Service to manage Bloomberg Data License sources and deliver the returned data into the client data warehouse and distribution infrastructure.

Within a six week period, the client was actively using the service to manage their historical data requests.

As a result:

• Data is delivered matching client requests, increasing efficiency and reducing errors
• Data is delivered on schedule
• Vendor Notifications are managed on behalf of the client with any changes applicable to the client’s needs filtered and applied according to business need
• Interface to client data warehouse is adapted to reflect any data structural changes
• The client has removed themselves completely from the cycle of software/hardware and data feed management upgrade and change management

The client, New York based Broker Dealer, ITG was faced with significantly increasing futures trading business demand from their clients.

To fulfil this demand, ITG required both the ability to source and match instrument and trade data form the derivatives exchanges and improve their Reference Data Master to allow clear communication with their clients and to integrate their operations processes across the business.

ITG selected Bloomberg PolarLake to provide a Futures and Options Security Master Data Management Service to intelligently connect and match contract, customer and market data.

Following a three-month period of close co-operation between ITG and Bloomberg PolarLake, the service was implemented successfully and on schedule, integrating and matching data across:

• Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters Market Vendor data products
• 30+ derivative marketplaces including CME, ICE and CBT
• Internal trading and reporting systems driven by client internal identifiers

The service incorporates 24×7 Bloomberg PolarLake Data Operations processes including:

• Monitoring of daily operations
• Managing matching exceptions across all inputs
• Exchange, Vendor Data, Internal  Metadata management and maintenance
• Matching rolling futures to stable identifiers across sources
• Provision of Daily Data Quality Reports

Each business day, validated and transformed data, including matched keys, is delivered to ITG for use by internal trading and middle and back office systems together with client and execution broker trading communications.

The managed service has enabled ITG to unlock the data barrier, thereby providing the essential transparency required to expand derivatives trading.

“Bloomberg PolarLake enabled ITG to concentrate on our Derivatives business, whilst they concentrate on delivering the Data Management service to support us. This success was the result of great collaboration between ITG and Bloomberg PolarLake leveraging Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters data products.”   

Matthew Timberlake, Managing Director, ITG

The client, a global leader in delivering asset and fund administration solutions headquartered in North America had decided to add a new data vendor to their operations environment.

With no in-depth internal knowledge of the management of the selected feed, the client chose Bloomberg PolarLake to both manage the Bloomberg Data License environment and integrate the distribution to downstream systems.

Within three months, the client was live on the Bloomberg PolarLake Vendor Feed Management Service.

As a result:

• The client’s reference data platform was enhanced by global reference data across an extensive number of securities and asset classes, updated at various multiple points each day.
• The client was successfully delivering enhanced business services to their highly diverse user base
• A complete vendor feed data management, governance and audit environment was in place
• Vendor Notifications are managed on behalf of the client with any changes applicable to the client’s needs filtered and applied according to business need

• Interfaces to downstream systems are managed and adapted to reflect any data structural changes
• The client has removed themselves completely from the cycle of software/hardware and data feed management upgrade and change management

The client, a Global Corporate Treasury  arm of a North American Multi-National acquires global foreign exchange and interest rate data daily in order to populate their Enterprise Risk Platform to manage exchange risk and deliver exposure reporting.

The Bloomberg PolarLake Vendor Feed Management Service was selected to proactively manage the firm’s  Bloomberg Data License feeds and integrate the resulting data with the internal SAP environment.

Following a four week period of close co-operation between the client and Bloomberg PolarLake to complete analysis, configuration and testing, the service was implemented successfully and on schedule delivering proactively managed foreign exchange pricing and interest rate data each trading day integrated with the SAP risk and accounting platform.

The client benefits from  24×7 Bloomberg PolarLake Data Operations processes and support including:

• Monitoring of daily operations
• Reporting of data usage observations across source data
• Vendor Notification Management
• Automatic update of vendor feed changes
• Access to industry expert data support analysts

The client, a global Hedge Fund Manager headquartered in New York was faced with an immediate need to increase operational efficiency and reduce operational risk.

Multiple, duplicated systems and processes used to manage reference and pricing data had resulted in inconsistent data quality and inefficient operations.

Client  resources  were  being  employed simply  to  reconcile  data  across  Order Management,  Portfolio  Management  and Accounting systems in an effort to manage daily processing. End of day processing times were being missed. Data was inconsistent.

In order to meet the business demands, a requirement was defined to deliver a high quality data management environment to increase operational efficiency and reduce operational risk.

The client chose to implement a series of Bloomberg PolarLake Managed Services.

A phased approach was chosen to cover a universe of 66 Asset Classes. The phases were:

• Pricing Master
• Security Master
• Security Set-Up
• Corporate Action Processing

Within three months, the client was benefiting from :

• an extensive and fully audited Data Governance policy
• significantly reduced processing times to fully meet business requirements
• a fully integrated Security and Pricing Master covering 66 asset classes without having to purchase or install software
• removing themselves from the continuous software upgrade cycle and vendor feed management process
• a fully integrated Security Set-Up process
• a low risk iterative integration process Set-Up

The client, European regional bank, Swedbank was facing the immediate introduction of new trade regulatory reporting requirements to the local market.

With the need to implement and manage multiple vendor feeds including those new to the business and in view of the timescales, Swedbank opted for a managed service over an in-house development and chose Bloomberg PolarLake to deliver a Security Master solution.

Within three months, Swedbank was live on the managed service.

As a result:

• Swedbank delivered the requisite EMIR trade reporting within the timeframes stipulated by the regulators
• Bloomberg and Six Financial feeds are fully managed  by Bloomberg PolarLake
• A complete security master covering 22 Asset Classes is managed and updated each trading day
• Client Asset Class structures have been captured in the managed service enabling the running of client specific business rules and matching of multiple instrument IDs
• Exceptions are created as a result of the business rules and reported to Swedbank for correction
• The golden copy data is integrated with the Swedbank trade reporting system
• All delivery processes are monitored by the Bloomberg PolarLake Data Operations team

Swedbank was presented with the Inside Reference Data  – “Best Reference Data Initiative Award” for their appliction of the Bloomberg PolarLake Managed Service to meet the urgent need for EMIR trade reporting solution.

The initial reference data service has now been expanded to include a Pricing Data service for both the Stockholm headquarters and the Luxembourg Asset Management business.