“Always on” IT service delivery; round the clock (human) customer support

The use of reference data is not always an ‘after the event’ activity for reporting purposes. Futures and options reference data in particular is not only instrumental but also mission critical in price discovery for forward-priced transactions. As such, any problem with this data, whether at source , in its delivery to an end user application, or because of a ‘glitch in the matrix’ on the end user side , can cause major headaches.

A key challenge with respect to reference data is ‘translating’ different instrument ID formats from different sources into the required format for end user destinations. A saying often referenced in the context of the ongoing challenges of efficient transaction data management particularly is: “the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from”. Not only are there no standardised ‘codes’ for describing and identifying traded instruments, in today’s technology-led global trading environment, there are also myriad more instruments, sources and end destinations contributing to the volume of data created, and to the complexity of data management workflows and processes.

Getting the right data, in the right way

If a market participant can’t get the right data, in the right way and at the right time, whether caused by an external or internal problem, they can’t serve their own customers. They also run the risk of reporting bad information to regulators (per MiFID II and EMIR reporting rules). Reporting the wrong ISIN can lead to painful remediation requiring large tranches of data to be re-reported correctly, and in some cases, to hefty fines. Reporting a valid but wrong ISIN - one that is correct in and of itself but the wrong identifier for the specific instrument being reported - remains today one of the most significant contributors to ‘failed’ regulatory reporting.

For all these reasons, having the right data in the right format is imperative, and FOW’s purpose is to make that happen - taking data from multiple sources and translating it as appropriate to travel seamlessly through multiple applications to end destinations. As part of our commitment to meeting this imperative, we underpin our service delivery with 24/7/365 IT support, ensuring that we are always on hand to fix delivery and messaging problems, whatever the cause and regardless of the time, size (value) or physical location of customers.

24/7/365 IT support capabilities

Our production environment is hosted in the cloud, and uses several tools to monitor data processing performance within that environment.

If a process fails, a signal is sent immediately and automatically to one of our team of IT support operatives, via an alert on their smartphone. The operative then connects directly from the app to our (cloud) production environment to fix the issue.

Where an issue relates to a customer-specific process, the operative informs the customer that there is a problem (that they may not themselves be aware of) and provides regular and frequent updates until the issue has been satisfactorily resolved.

In the case of an issue with data and data flows, (regardless of whether it is anything to do with our own service delivery), customers send an email to our IT support address to invoke a prompt call back from one of our IT support operatives. This enables us to deliver the highest levels of customer service, based on detailed knowledge of our customers’ business needs and relationship with us.

Our goal is that our 24/7/365 IT support capabilities are never put to the test. In a similar vein, we encourage our technical support operatives to continuously improve the system and processes ‘to make themselves redundant’ enabling their skills to be redeployed in other areas of our service delivery.

If you have any questions regarding our 24/7/365 IT support Contact us.