Time in Two Dimensions

The new regulatory imperative

In his latest article for Wilmott Magazine Xenomorph CEO Brian Sentance discusses the business requirement for "bi-temporality" in storing and analysing financial market data.

Can you reproduce all the data and calculations you based your decisions on at any given point in time? If the answer is "no," "maybe," or "it would take a while," then prepare for a hard time from regulators, auditors, clients, and senior management as they all become more interested in the detail behind the decisions taken at times of market and internal stress. Post-crisis, it is no longer sufficient to store a single history of how prices, positions, and analysis have changed over time, but rather it is also necessary to store a history of how your "history" has changed over time. This article describes some of the basic principles of "bi-temporal" storage, and provides one illustration of how bi-temporality could be implemented as part of an integrated approach to the management of data and analytics in financial markets.

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Time in Two Dimensions appeared in Wilmott, Issue 54, July 2011, published by Wilmott Magazine Ltd c/o John Wiley & Sons Ltd.