Panel from Ninety One, ICE and BlackRock discuss challenges of data ownership at FILS EU

At our Fixed Income Leaders Summit, a panel of traders, dealers and commercial data providers had an in-depth discussion about the challenges surrounding data ownership.

Leaders from Ninety One, ICE and BlackRock agreed that progress needs to be made and recognised the need for a clear resolution.

Speaking in Barcelona, Cathy Gibson, global head of trading at Ninety One said: “It’s not as black and white, as there is one clear owner. I agree that [data providers] add value, but I look at my trade data and I consider that to be mine.

"I initiated the trade, I closed the trade, and I will consider it to be mine. I don’t think I’m wrong. Then there are funds, particularly in the US, actually putting in clauses that say all data to do with any transaction on the back of this fund is the sole proprietary of the actual fund itself.

"Consequently, there you have three people claiming to potentially own the same data set [the asset manager, the dealer and the venue], so it is not straightforward."

Amanda Hinlian, president of fixed income & data services at ICE delved further into the complexities of data ownership.

She added: "This is a complicated question that will continue to persist. The most important thing is, are you extracting value from your data? Many of you will say ‘no’.

"It is a bit like Don Quixote, at first you’re chasing windmills, and at what point does some of the data become truly useful to you? That is in some elements a learning exercise.”

Daniel Mayston, head of electronic trading and market structure at BlackRock, stressed that simpler licensing agreements were needed.

He said: “There’s a massive cost on the industry that arises from the complexity of data licencing agreements.

“We’ve had the political agreements to get a consolidated tape [in Europe], the UK is also forging ahead so lessons need to be learned that we need simpler licencing arrangements.

"We have to move away from this use-case-by-use-case licencing, which is so complicated that you need whole legal departments to just stay on top of the cases you have, and auditing requirements etc.

"This is affecting the democratisation of data, Ultimately, data does need to be something that gets put into the hands of people. The onerous complexity is just an unnecessary obstacle.”

These quotes were originally published by The Desk in an article written by Dan Barnes.