The proliferation of big data across global business has been well documented and is readily apparent in everyday life. From the smart watch on your wrist to the advertisements on your screens to the elections in which you cast your vote, data is being mined, analyzed, and leveraged to create actionable business insights.

The financial industry as a whole is no laggard in this effort. Fintech startups leveraging the power of data continue to take the industry by storm, and — even after a year of mixed returns for quants — a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission report labeled the use of algorithms in trading as “pervasive.” But the rise of big data, for all its benefits, now means traders — both systematic and discretionary — must contend with an ever-increasing volume of data from discrete and disconnected sources.

Picture a trading desk at a mid-to large-cap bank dealing heavily in energy. Some on the desk may conduct their trades on Fidessa, while others may utilize CQG or another vendor, or an internally developed platform. These platforms all have the capability to display and analyze data, allowing the trader to learn from their previous behavior — but the systems don’t speak to each other. For this team of energy traders, their data is stuck in silos with no way to effectively use it as a group.

This issue of siloed data is compounded by a regulatory environment that requires that trading data speak to each other. Increasingly complex and ever-changing reporting standards (both abroad and domestic) necessitate automated systems that can query and submit historical trading activity at the drop of a hat, and hazy and potentially ambiguous market abuse statutes require the availability and accessibility of trading data for real-time monitoring.

These concerns are what our flagship product, CrossCheck 2, was designed to alleviate. At BornTec we like to say we “break down the silos” in which your data is stuck, but that may be an overwrought metaphor — we aren’t taking a sledgehammer to internal and external business systems, but we are efficiently aggregating the data contained within these systems and normalizing it. In effect, we allow your data sets to talk to each other at scale.

It is this automation — done in a real-time environment — that unlocks the power of the data at every trader’s fingertips. Offices no longer have to worry about where to find trading history when the government comes knocking, nor do they have to worry that they are missing out on insights already on hand. By collecting, collating, and connecting various streams of data, CrossCheck 2 allows traders to do what they do best: look for patterns and leverage them for favorable outcomes.

For more on CrossCheck 2, and how you can do more with your own data, reach out to us at sales@borntec.com