Enterprise Data Management Europe 2010

he US may seem to be ahead of the rest of the world in terms of championing the data management cause with the inclusion of reference data focused items in the Dodd-Frank Act, but Europe is not too far behind. Senior European level officials such as European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet have taken an active interest in the data management challenge across Europe to support their own endeavours to track systemic risk. And if it’s on the regulatory agenda, it’s sure to be rising up the priority list within European financial institutions.

In October, Trichet delivered the opening address to the central bank’s own conference on statistics and much of his speech was strangely familiar. Referring directly to the need for a “public reference data utility” that could provide “standardised information on instruments and entities that would be operated on the basis of an international agreement”, Trichet is obviously championing the work of his head of external statistics Francis Gross, who has been leading the charge in Europe for such a utility.

However, this is not an isolated incident: Trichet has been talking about the need for strong data foundations to support the functions of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) for some time. The ESRB’s main tasks will be: to identify and prioritise systemic risks; to issue early warnings when significant systemic risks emerge; and to issue policy recommendations for remedial action in response to the risks it identifies. One of the main requirements for conducting accurate and efficient macro-prudential oversight is to have a solid data foundation on which to base judgements with regards to systemic risk analysis. Management of this data to ensure its accuracy and reliability, and that the regulatory community is able to put the information to use is therefore paramount.