Rimes to Debut New Benchmarks Service

With the advent of the European Union’s Benchmarks Regulation (BMR) in January, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ushered in a stringent regime for the administration, contribution to, and use of benchmarks used in financial instruments and contracts. Data provider Rimes is set to roll out a new service designed to help specifically with that.

“For benchmark users such as asset managers, banks and insurance companies, BMR has brought with it uncertainty over which new benchmarks are approved for use in the EU, and around which historic benchmarks will continue to be authorized once the BMR transition period ends on January 1, 2020,” says Alessandro Ferrari, chief marketing officer of data provider Rimes.

Under BMR, users can only use benchmarks from authorized or registered benchmark administrators. Fines for non-compliance can run to as much as 10 percent of a firm’s annual income. To help users navigate these choppy waters, Rimes is set to launch the next stage of its RegFocus suite of solutions: the BMR Data Feed.

“RegFocus BMR Data Feed gives benchmarks users clarity over which benchmarks are authorized under BMR as the benchmarks landscape continues to evolve,” he says. “The service addresses the two major challenges faced by the financial industry with BMR: What specific benchmarks can I use—as the European Securities and Markets Authority only provides the names of the administrators—and how do I identify an index when no standard identifier, e.g: an ISIN, has been mandated by the regulation.”

Rimes has mapped index reference codes across official symbols, including ISIN, Bloomberg Ticker and Reuters Instrument Code. The service draws on data from interviews with 350 data providers, including MSCI, FTSE Russell, Bloomberg, S&P Dow Jones and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), as well inputs from Esma and other European regulators, Ferrari says.

“The result is a complete repository of all indices authorized for use in the EU under BMR—including from administrators based in third-country jurisdictions—that is continually updated to reflect changes as they occur,” he continues.

Rimes will officially rollout a soft launch of the service this week at the company’s BMR event in London. Ferrari says that the event has experienced the fastest registration rate of any Rimes event, ever, due to the confusion that persists in the market around BMR.

The BMR Data Feed is a managed service where the user sends Rimes their daily list of benchmarks they’re planning to use and the vendor sends back a feed showing the ones they’re approved for. “If no standard identifier has been mandated by the reg, we will research the index further, hence the managed service component,” Ferrari says.

Earlier this month it was announced that Rimes had won two categories at this year’s Buy-Side Technology Awards: best data provider to the buy side and best implementation at a buy-side firm (data and operations).