So you have mastered your static product data – congratulations! You’re now one step ahead of your competition. What next?

Accurate and trustworthy static data creates a foundation that offers many additional opportunities for asset managers to utilise their data, driving the business forward while keeping on the right side of their regulators. It also presents opportunities to empower customers and reduce time on unnecessary data administration tasks.

So let’s get to it, what additional opportunities present themselves after the static product master is mastered…

Get dynamic

It’s a fantastic idea to supplement your Golden Source of static data with dynamic data e.g. prices, dividends and so on. We achieve this at Fundipedia by utilising our highly intelligent and customisable import feeds. This allows our clients to load dynamic data from any upstream source, such as a Third Party Administrator.

This allows asset managers to place controls and audits on their dynamic data, making it easier to meet the requirements of regulators.

Once asset managers have a Golden Source of their dynamic data, they can distribute it internally and disseminate it externally, usually to their downstream vendor platforms.

Controls can also be placed on these dissemination points, ensuring that only accurate data is delivered downstream. This ensures that customers are less likely to discover issues – more on that in the next section…

Distribute on demand; fix downstream issues faster than ever

When an asset manager has a trustworthy copy of their static and dynamic data, they can use it to meet the demands of their customers and reduce resource overhead by saving weeks of unnecessary tail-chasing.

We all know that customers often flag potentially incorrect data on downstream platforms such as Morningstar, FE Fund Info, Hargreaves Lansdown, etc. These complaints usually hit the client services team first – where they go into a black hole.

A black hole exists because the client services team doesn’t have an accurate copy of their static and dynamic data, and so they struggle to answer customer data queries effectively.  Without data, ideally with an audit trail, there are too many moving parts. Looking for the source of a data problem is incredibly time consuming. Questions that have to be resolved include, among others:

  • Was the price file sent to the downstream vendor? 
  • Was the file late? 
  • Was the file corrupt? 
  • Did the vendor receive the file and not load it?  

An uninformed asset manager will spend days or weeks chasing down answers.  Meanwhile, the customer loses faith and reputations are damaged.

Asset managers that use Fundipedia to store and disseminate static and dynamic data have no such headaches. Any team across the business can see the latest data from all angles, as well as an audit trail of how and when the data was distributed. This information enables the quick and accurate discovery of the root cause of any bad data that can then be fixed once and for all.  Fundipedia’s clients resolve data accuracy issues with downstream vendors in hours rather than days.

Don’t forget your internal data consumers

We often focus on external parties, but internal data consumers are just as important.

For example, why not create a single source of performance information in your product master, derived from one business wide calculation methodology?  This prevents individual teams across the business from duplicating calculations and potentially using a different methodology, which will inevitably cause inconsistencies in the final numbers.

It also ensures that the entire business has one set of performance figures they can trust and rely on.

Reconciliation on autopilot

Reconciliation with downstream vendors ensures that you know when a problem exists and can get ahead of it before your customers spot something wrong. Or worse still, a regulator spots something wrong.

Fundipedia has a unique first responder feature that intelligently flags errors to the people, or teams, most likely to be able to resolve them in the shortest amount of time.

The journey has just started

These are just some examples of the ways in which a static product master can be further enhanced to add value to an asset manager, and more importantly, your customers.

Static data is essential but opens so many doors.  

If you’d like to know more about any of the above concepts feel free to get in touch.