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Shared Instrument Data Across Custodians

This is a short guide explaining how REMAP handles shared instrument information across different custodians.

Problem Definition​

In case that DECAF hosts accounts from different custodians and/or counterparties and REMAP is commissioned to integrate data feeds from these institutions, a particular challenge arises: Uniformity of Instrument Definitions.

Each custodian has their own way of encoding instrument information and identifying them. If an instrument is traded for two accounts which are custodied in two different custodians, their data feed may provide varying information.

Strategies to Handle Instrument Data from Different Custodians/Counterparties​

There are two strategies to handle such cases:

  1. Treat each instrument as a unique instrument if they are custodied in different custodians.
  2. Identify the instrument using a third-party, independent data provider and treat the instrument under a single, shared definition.

The Advantage of Shared Instrument Data​

The advantage of a shared instrument is that you can do actual consolidation across custodians and is more useful for analytical purposes. For example, when you want to know the exposure to and all positions of a distressed asset, you can retrieve this information more easily.

The Disadvantage of Shared Instrument Data​

The disadvantage of a shared instrument is that you can have only unique properties, i.e you can not have two different prices for a shared instrument and you can have only one set of reference information.

The Process for Shared Instrument Data​

In case that the shared instrument data strategy is chosen, it requires a uniform and coherent treatment of the instrument information. We have designed following process for such cases:

Step 1. Get the ISIN + Currency information : The system first gets the ISIN and the Currency information from the custodian data. For example, LU1376832967 and USD.

Step 2. Search for ISIN + Currency on OpenFIGI : The system then goes to the API interface of OpenFIGI and searches for the instrument using the ISIN and Currency, such as:

https://www.openfigi.com/search#!?simpleSearchString=LU1376832967

Step 3. Create the instrument : If there is information for the ISIN and Currency, the system uses the information from OpenFIGI to create the instrument using the Symbol and the Name from OpenFIGI. If there is no information on OpenFIGI, the system uses the name from the custodian and create an arbitrary symbol.

Please note that the ISIN for Structured Products is not a reliable source on OpenFIGI for information retrieval. Therefore, the structured product information almost always comes from the custodian/counterparty data feed.