Data Centralization Initiative Pays off for LBBW

LBBW has deployed TimeScape to ensure data quality and regulatory compliance while tackling growing data volumes to facilitate growth.

German bank Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) has started to experience the benefits of its back-office project aimed at tackling its growing data requirements and reaching a consolidated approach to data management, by implementing Xenomorph's analytics and data management system TimeScape, officials tell Inside Reference Data.

The project, initiated to improve LBBW's internal model for market risk calculations, one of the main business drivers behind the push for data quality internally, has also enabled the bank to ensure quality and consistency, and allow the risk, back office and accountancy departments to manage data at a group level.

New York-based Brian Sentance, CEO of Xenomorph, says a key factor enabling the bank to meet its requirements was the flexibility of the data model in TimeScape. "The data model allows LBBW to add new instrument attributes and instrument types as needed by the business, hence leveraging the benefits of a well-supported, documented external platform while achieving levels of flexibility commonly only found in internally developed systems," explains Sentance, adding that having consistency around the market data used across different departments will also help the bank reduce data costs and reduce reconciliation times between systems.

Facilitating compliance was also one of the main drivers behind the initiative, especially when the bank had to deal with increasing data volumes. Prior to implementation, the expectation was to manage data for 120,000 instruments. The number of instruments grew to 160,000 by the end of the project, and has now reached about 210,000.

"I believe LBBW was pleased to show its regulators how the quality, consistency and transparency of its market data had improved as part of its internal model approval process," says Sentance, adding that in the long term, having a consistent data framework in place also enables faster validation of new business practices, helping LBBW to achieve its business goals sooner.

LBBW now plans to expand the use of reference data across systems, expanding data volumes further, and is currently in the pre-production testing phase on TimeScape Version 4.

By combining standards-based database management tools with the vendor's time-series storage capability, the new version allows the bank to manage its growing data volumes, and enables new departments to access core data.

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Read the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg case study.