Financial Markets Operations Management

CHAPTER 3 Data Management

3.1 INTRODUCTION

In today's financial world, the typical Operations Department has to capture and process vast amounts of data and information. In our personal lives we have to remember a multitude of login IDs, passwords, PIN numbers, telephone numbers, addresses of family, friends, customers, etc. How do we remember any or all of these different types of information? We can either memorise them (open to forgetfulness) or write them down (open to losing the paperwork). Either way, we run the risk of not having the correct information at the moment when we actually require it.

We are probably able to correctly identify our personal telephone numbers, home address and our most frequently used PIN numbers; we might possibly think we can remember some of our less frequently used information but have little chance of remembering occasionally used information. What, then, can we do? The obvious solution would be to develop a database into which we can enter a variety of different types of information that can be accessed easily when needed. Straight away you might be able to identify a problem with this approach – your database might be appropriate for your needs but inappropriate for everybody else's! In one sense, this is what has happened in the industry: banks, securities houses, fund management companies and all the other types of participant have developed their own databases focusing on their own requirements. What is needed, however, is a high degree ...