Xenomorph Building New Module To Reduce Duplicated Data Requests

Data management specialist Xenomorph plans to introduce a new module to its flagship EDM platform in 2021. The feature will offer users a standardized approach to reduce duplicate requests for the same data. 

Matthew Skinner, Xenomorph chief product officer, says different departments or trading desks within large organizations often request the same data from vendors, unwittingly duplicating charges and fees. Many firms write their own apps to try and solve this issue, as solutions addressing it are not widely available, he says.  

Currently the vendor is talking with a large bank client about providing the service. “They wrote their own little scripts to intercept these request messages, [so] they have written their own version,” Skinner says. “But now they want to extend it [to more asset classes] and they just don’t have the resources. So we are pitching for that business. And at the same time, we are trying to make this module more of a product and build it anyway—whether or not we win the business from this bank—and put that into our product for next year.” 

Xenomorph’s planned module is intended to reduce costs for these organizations by filtering out data already found in the firm’s database from the requests it is pushing out to data providers.

“Xenomorph EDM will store all the data coming from external data vendors, as well as a great deal of internal data too, and will be able to check whether or not the data is already available simply by looking at its own database,” Skinner says.

To remove duplicated requests, the client configures their internal system to connect to Xenomorph’s platform, rather than directly to the data provider’s. When a client’s internal system makes a request for data, the software will check what data is already available by searching the Xenomorph EDM database. Any data that is not available will be requested from the vendor as initially planned, and then combined with the data that is already available.

For example, a trader in a bank could send out a data request for 10 bonds they are planning to trade, requesting information on prices over recent months and their specific terms and conditions. However, someone within the bank might already have the data for six of the same bonds, which they traded in the past. The module will help identify this, and the client can then know to request data on just the four remaining contracts.

Once the data provider sends the requested data, the solution will save it to Xenomorph EDM, which will simultaneously combine it with the data that is already in the database, to create a normalized dataset.

More Features

The new module will also include some other features, such as a costing mechanism with which a user will track data usage, which Xenomorph has still to build. This will allow clients to charge internal departments according to their usage, and help them identify where data is not being consumed.

“You might be downloading data and you might discover no one’s actually using it,” Skinner says.

Skinner says Xenomorph will need this feature to ensure that its solution can track data as it enters and moves around an organization, thus being able to monitor both the data imports and exports that are occurring within Xenomorph EDM. After this it will be able to generate reports for the data managers showing the usage of the data and identify data that is not being used. 

It is also looking to add a matching feature in the planned module update to make sure the same instruments are not represented twice in the client’s systems. For example, one person within the organization might have requested data on a security represented on an exchange by a particular stock ticker. Someone else in the organization might have requested data on that same security, but might have asked for data associated with the security’s ISIN (International Securities Identification Number) instead. The matching module would detect that in fact these codes are referring to the same security.  

Skinner says a lot of times the same instrument can be added to a client’s system twice, comparing the process of on-boarding a new instrument to on-boarding a client. “Before you add a new one [instrument], just check you have not already got it,” he says. “And if you have, maybe you want to merge the details. It can get quite complicated just trying to spot that the same two instruments are actually the same.” 

Xenomorph serves a range of clients including on the buy side and sell side, as well as regulators and private equity firms. The new module will be aimed at anyone who is charged for data from external vendors and needs to track data consumption across their organization. It will also target anyone requiring on-boarding and matching functionality to assist with data reconciliation.