Citadel Investment Group has signed a 10-year deal with Accenture to manage key aspects of its financial data management processes. It becomes the first customer for the Accenture Managed Reference Data Service, which Accenture and data management software vendor Asset Control agreed to jointly market and implement in 2004.
The Accenture Managed Reference Data Service is a suite of data management, IT, vendor management and performance measurement services that will consolidate, validate and enhance published reference data for Citadel.
Accenture says that unlike traditional on-site reference data solutions, its managed service operates on a centralised 'one to many' basis to maximise cost and operational efficiencies through economies of scale. The service will support Citadel's incoming reference data feeds from multiple sources, including market data vendors, corporate actions data vendors, exchanges and other commercial and public sources.
"Historically, reference data management in the capital markets industry has been fragmented, inconsistent, costly and error prone," says Patricia Tsien, the Accenture partner in charge of the service. "With one third of trade execution problems caused by reference data errors and with new and unprecedented regulatory standards for data quality, we believe centralised reference data management will soon by synonymous with high performance in the global capital markets."
Accenture also has a number of contracts to manage market data at large investment banks and exchanges.