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Thomson Reuters / Refinitiv

Data Provenance

A MiFID II-compliant platform to see where every piece of data had been, and who handled it.

Thomson Reuters logo

Client

Thomson Reuters

Driver

MiFID II

Discipline

Product & platform

Sector

Data & information

01 — Background

A new regulation built entirely around transparency.

Thomson Reuters is one of the world's largest collectors and sellers of third-party data.

Historically, repackaging that data carried a compliance risk the business had learned to absorb — breaches of contract were dealt with as they arose rather than designed out.

MiFID II changed the calculation. Introduced in response to the 2008 financial crisis, its central feature was transparency: the regulation aimed to increase transparency in financial markets by requiring more pre- and post-trade transparency across a range of financial instruments.

Data landscape analysis
Mapping the existing data landscape

02 — Problem

Every piece of data had to be fully auditable at every stage, from source to end product.

Problem, in detail

The existing model would no longer be legal.

MiFID II was a significant issue for Thomson Reuters. Combining arbitrary data and repackaging it for sale, without clear transparency and accountability, would not survive the new rules.

Anything sold had to be traceable across every stage of its transformation — from the moment it entered the ecosystem to the moment a client bought the finished product.

03 — Goals

Three things the system had to do.

G/01

Track every piece of data

From the point it entered the Thomson Reuters ecosystem to the point a client bought it.

G/02

Let everyone audit their assets

A service that allows Thomson Reuters, their suppliers and their customers to better audit and manage informational assets — transforming how third-party data and content is handled, from sourcing and onboarding through to building products.

G/03

Make Finance & Risk more efficient

Enable the department to adopt a more transparent approach to data management, becoming more efficient and gaining exposure to fresh insight in the process.

04 — Solution

Revelation.

We designed Revelation: a platform that transformed the way Thomson Reuters manages and audits digital data, content and product.

It ingests all obtained Thomson Reuters and third-party data, breaks down contracts and rights to create specific supplier services, and provides the means to recombine those into new products — while offering auditable information on every aspect of each entity through digital interfaces.

Users can view information drawn from various datasets and combine or manipulate it with new tools. Everyone from product developers to salespeople to customers can get transparent insight into a product and each of its constituent parts.

The system also identifies new opportunities, using machine learning to suggest the information and packages a client is best suited to.

What the platform does

IngestBreak down contracts & rightsCreate supplier services Recombine into productsAudit every entityML recommendations