Market data remains one of the most essential, and expensive, resources for financial institutions. Yet many firms still manage it with systems and processes that haven’t kept pace with the scale, speed and complexity of today’s markets and regulatory environments.
What was once a centralized market data procurement and inventory function is now stretched across teams, tools and territories. Contracts accumulate over time. Vendor relationships span legacy licenses and new subscription models. Usage rights differ not just by provider but by product. The result is a tangled environment where very few have a clear view of what’s being used, by whom, and on what terms.
This level of fragmentation creates more than just cost issues. It makes it difficult to manage entitlements, track usage accurately, or retire services when they’re no longer needed. In many firms, access is granted inconsistently and subscriptions continue without review or oversight. Teams work with different systems and naming conventions, making it hard to map costs accurately or spot inefficiencies.
Compliance pressures are adding to the strain
Complicating matters further, many services are now consumed outside the traditional procurement process, trialed directly by teams or integrated into internal systems without full visibility. Inventory lists are often outdated or incomplete, and reconciliation between procurement, usage and cost is manual at best. In this kind of environment, it’s easy for mistakes to go unnoticed until an audit or renewal comes due.
The governance burden this creates is growing. In the past, firms may have been able to rely on annual audits and manual checks to stay compliant with licensing terms. That’s no longer viable. Regulators now expect firms to demonstrate continuous oversight of their data usage and entitlements. That includes being able to show who’s accessing what, for what purpose, and under which contractual conditions. Without visibility into how costs are likely to develop, it becomes harder to prepare for what’s coming, whether that’s increased licensing demand, contract renewals or shifting regulatory requirements.
This is particularly relevant when it comes to index data. Many firms use family licenses that cover multiple products, but the entitlements aren’t always clearly understood across departments. Without clear audit trails, it’s difficult to prove compliance – especially when constituents are embedded within applications or workflows. With the increasing scrutiny on usage-based pricing and data transparency, this lack of clarity poses financial and reputational risk.
For many institutions, the immediate challenge is operational. Time is being lost managing billing errors, validating services and resolving invoice disputes. In some firms, teams are still manually checking inventory against outdated spreadsheets. Others are trying to work across different formats, taxonomies and system outputs, with no consistent way to map services back to their business users or cost centers.
Even firms that have invested in dedicated teams often find that without standardized naming conventions or metadata, reporting remains partial at best. And without a central view, contract renewals are handled reactively, missing opportunities to rationalize or renegotiate.
A shift towards structured control
The opportunity now is to shift from maintenance to control. That starts with treating market data as a governed environment, not just a procurement category. Centralizing inventory data, normalizing naming conventions and aligning services to users and applications gives firms the baseline they need to operate with confidence. It also opens the door to benchmarking spend more accurately and spotting duplication or unused entitlements.
Some firms have begun to build out more structured programs – mapping vendor services against usage, integrating renewal timelines into strategic reviews, and assigning ownership across the full lifecycle. Crucially, this kind of structure also enables firms to project future costs with more accuracy. Without a clear line of sight across entitlements, renewals and usage trends, it’s difficult to forecast spend or align budgets with changing data needs. As firms expand into new markets or adapt to regulatory shifts, the ability to predict and control future expense becomes just as important as managing current outlay.
This doesn’t require an overhaul of core systems, but it does demand clarity about what data exists, how it’s used and what it costs.
The goal isn’t to restrict access, but to remove friction. When teams have confidence in the accuracy of inventory, billing, and entitlement data, they can make decisions faster – whether that’s about new subscriptions, vendor negotiations or compliance responses. Most importantly, it reduces the risk of being caught off guard.
In today’s regulatory environment, market data governance isn’t optional. Firms need to be able to stand behind their reporting, demonstrate compliance and quickly respond to questions. Without clear control, that’s a daunting task.
Financial institutions don’t need more systems or more people. They need better structure, better visibility and better processes that reflect the complexity of today’s data environment. The firms that recognize this – and act – will be in a far stronger position as scrutiny grows and costs continue to climb.
By Simon Mendoza, CTO, Calero
