Reference data is static information about securities that includes stock and bond identification data, corporate actions data, end-of-day prices, business entity identifiers and other descriptive data. Accenture's reference data management service supports Wachovia's more than 4.5 million securities, including global equities, fixed income and derivative products.

"This service helps us standardize and centralize our data management processes in order to rapidly deliver "golden copy" reference data throughout the enterprise," said George Vega, managing director and global head of capital markets technology at Wachovia Securities. "By focusing relentlessly on data quality and embracing new technologies and outsourced models, we aim to improve our service to clients and efficiently manage an ever growing volume of trades."

Accenture's reference data service integrates with Wachovia's onsite AC Plus reference database to provide seamless cleansing and management of Wachovia's internal and third-party reference data.

"High-quality enterprise data management is key to reducing the costs and risks of failed trades and empowering a high performance financial operation," said Bill Cline, managing director of Accenture's Capital Markets practice in North America and Asia-Pacific. "Wachovia recognized that our outsourced model can be more cost-effective at cleansing larger numbers of securities at higher quality levels than any single-client onsite solution."