SimCorp survey reveals buy-side lack of confidence in data quality

SimCorp, a leading provider of highly specialised software and expertise for the investment industry, today released the results of a data management survey conducted in December 2011. The survey polled nearly 100 executives from 50 buy-side firms across North America.


Poll results revealed that over 40% of the surveyed buy-side firms are not confident that the data they are receiving from disparate systems such as order management systems, accounting, performance and risk systems is consistent and of high quality. In addition, 67.4% of respondents believe that there is significant effort involved in reconciling data between disparate systems and sources. Approximately 22% of respondents indicated that it would take days (vs. minutes or hours) to generate a report calculating their firm’s exposure/performance across all holdings, including derivatives. Nearly 8% responded that this would take weeks.

"The statistics are distressing," says Matt Samelson, Principal at Woodbine Associates, the Stamford CT-based consulting firm. "According to these numbers, 40% of those surveyed are making investment decisions based on poor quality data, and nearly 30% do not have a near real-time view into their exposure, making it impossible for these firms to be agile and respond to shifting market dynamics. We as a community need to galvanise change in order to restore investor confidence.”

“Improving data quality does not have to be rooted in a long and expensive enterprise data management undertaking,” notes David Kubersky, Managing Director of SimCorp North America. “Investment managers that have adopted core multi-asset class investment accounting systems have a distinct advantage with data quality, as position data is already consolidated in a single repository across all instrument classes.”

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Enquiries regarding this announcement should be addressed to:
Susan Peter, SimCorp North America (+ 1 917 546 4654).

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About SimCorp
Since 1971, SimCorp has been providing investment and portfolio management software and services to the world’s leading investment managers, asset managers, fund managers, fund administrators, pension funds, insurance funds and wealth managers. SimCorp’s world-class software provides global financial organisations with the tools they need to mitigate risk, reduce cost, and enable growth. SimCorp is a global company, regionally covering all of Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Listed on the NASDAQ OMX, SimCorp is dedicated to supporting the global investment management industry, its clients and its investors. For more information about SimCorp’s products, please visit www.simcorp.com/product.