Privately-held PolarLake was founded in 2002 to help firms acquire, manage and distribute financial and reference data. It claims six of the world's top 10- investment banks among its customers.

It will now become a wholly owned subsidiary of Bloomberg but operate as an independent business unit with separate facilities and operations staff, "so it can provide the highest levels of security, privacy and permissioning for the data it receives".

Bloomberg says that by creating its own EDM unit it can help firms increase their efficiency by better managing high volumes of data from multiple sources, either third parties or proprietary.

Dan Doctoroff, president and CEO, Bloomberg, says: "Our customers are looking to find new ways to reduce the cost of managing data while adhering to increasing regulatory requirements for transparency. The Bloomberg Enterprise Data Management business will address those pressures and help companies make their systems more efficient, effective and integrated."

Bloomberg's move comes just weeks after fast-growing market data group Markit moved to buy EDM specialist Cadis, opening a new front in the battle for market share as financial institutions become increasingly reliant on EDM platforms to manage their big data challenges, reduce risk and comply with new regulations including Dodd-Frank, Basel III and Solvency II.