In our previous blog post we talked about ending the over reliance on the ratings agencies as the sole source of information for making critical investment decisions. To gain a comprehensive, 3D version of a market, a sector or even an individual asset, which let’s face it is exactly what clients are paying for, we believe it’s important the industry looks at a broad set of data in addition to the AAA rating.

But with the volume of data now available and the required speed to market, taking a multi-source approach can cause quite the operational headache.

Manually compiling and filtering data for these purposes is very costly and time consuming. And, it’s not a problem that can be overcome simply by adding more people to the process – it’s about arming the people you have with the tools that allows them to harness more information more effectively.

Not surprisingly, technology can bring relief and a solution that can consolidate, compare and contrast a multitude of disparate data sources and deliver these in a consistent and validated manner to multiple consuming systems. This is the only way to arm market participants with relevant and necessary information.

Indeed, the fundamental things that deliver value in the long-term, such as research, analysis and due diligence are fuelled by access to accurate, accessible and accurate information…Triple A, but not just in the conventional sense.

These are the components that ultimately drive value across a trading or investment business to create unique intelligence that generates alpha. However, the capability to efficiently pull a wide variety of data from more than one source demands investment in appropriate infrastructure. Without it, market participants are trading with limited intelligence.