EDM Council Members Work with DTCC to Standardize Financial Instrument Terms and Definitions

The DTCC initiative is another step towards standardizing the underlying data ontology for the financial industry. According to the Council, standardization of the nomenclature and definitions of financial attributes, along with understanding their practical business relationships, is a foundational requirement for enterprise data management (EDM). The Councils role in this project is to ensure alignment between the DTCC initiative and the Standard Data Model activity of the International Organization of Standards (ISO). ISO has been working for some time on a standard Securities Data Model, ISO 19312. The EDM Council views the standardization of terms and definitions as part of its overall goal to improve data quality. It claims standards help facilitate comparison and assist firms in defining the root cause of data errors. The DTCC initiative, while focused on the specific data attributes within the NIIDS feed, is being managed as an open and transparent process. The terms and definitions are available on the DTCC and EDM Council websites and are now being evaluated by DTCC participants, EDM Council members and many members from the Securities Industry Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).