In the exceedingly competitive fund administration and investment management industries, data quality, data completeness and rapid delivery of data to clients is more critical than ever — data is, after, all the driving force of our entire industry.
Given that the technological, regulatory and business environment under which we operate is constantly changing, it is important to consider carefully the best framework for storing, translating and presenting this data and interrogating the various data sources and technology solutions available on the market.
The static data landscape at Maitland has seen tremendous transformation over the past year. Our decision to move to a largely automated environment has resulted in the birth of a proprietary, fully automated reference data management system that is responsible for the storage, management and integration of static data terms and conditions. This newly developed system caters for almost every asset class in the world and, at the click of a button, can directly integrate data from various sources into multiple systems within seconds. While this function was previously managed using a third-party product, we have opted to build our own system to allow more flexibility and control as well as the ability to adapt, in real time, to various market changes.
Implementation of the automation strategy over the past year has seen a rapid and sustained decline of incidents of around 80% month on month within the static data area. Additionally, our team now spends little time manually capturing data, with sometimes no need to capture data at all. We will always need people for their analytical and emotional intelligence, but removal of the element of manual risk has boosted our productivity and team morale massively, allowing us to produce higher-quality work in a shorter period. Furthermore, the changes have also had a positive impact on our other downstream service offerings such as performance and attribution, compliance services and related reporting.
Given the large amount of success with automation in the static data area, there is a lot more that we as a business can and are going to do, particularly around ongoing market data maintenance. The coming weeks and months are packed with various strategic automation initiatives that will see Maitland and its clients move from strength to strength. We look forward to sharing this update with the broader market in the future.
Maitland Group South Africa is an authorised financial services provider. Follow Maitland Group on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
- Uthmaan Jaffer is manager: static and market data at Maitland Group South Africa
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