Seamless integration with the Bloomberg terminal
Synopsis: Why more systems should embrace integration with the Bloomberg terminal instead of fighting it with re-inventing the wheel and re-creating common dashboards, charts, news, and security/portfolio analytics.
While working with a small OMS/IBOR start-up provider out of the Nordics there was a philosophical discussion with the CEO and founder of the company. The discussion talked about the pros/cons of building functionality, acknowledging that similar capability was already well developed within the Bloomberg terminal. We examined the business opportunity and return on investment for two options; go ahead and build the capability into the OMS/IBOR product, or, integrate with the Bloomberg terminal and leverage the existing functionality. Ultimately, an investment was made in adopting the Bloomberg integration technology, and developing tight integration between the two offerings.
The result was one of the few third-party systems embracing the Bloomberg partnership instead of fighting the seamless integration. By adopting FIGI, an open symbology and registering with the Bloomberg 3rd party team, this small OMS/IBOR, overnight had seamless integration with the Bloomberg terminal. The startup was able to offer its portfolio managers the ability to review individual securities on a Bloomberg LaunchPad view, read news alerts, and then look at portfolio risk metrics all in the terminal and with one click auto send an API request back into their OMS to raise an order, review what a re-balance might look like, and double check their cash position before executing.
Experience suggests that, the way vendors should be working together to make the whole user’s desktop across multiple software solutions feel unified as if they were all one holistic solution. Bloomberg truly supports this extensibility and integration through their 3rd party program which is why we at Sherpa encourage more FinTech vendors to embrace API integration with Bloomberg.
Here are some common integrations many firms and vendors are unaware are available with the Bloomberg terminal:
Launchpad bi-directional integration
App portal bi-directional integration (APPS<GO>)
PORT, MARS, EMSX, VCON bi-directional integration
Updated news alerts, corp actions, and weightings on today’s positions from OMS/IBOR
Portfolio & Benchmark weightings changes into OMS/Risk/IBOR applications
Risk changes into OMS/Risk/IBOR applications
Now many firms and vendors are fearful of these integrations due to the strict licensing policies around the Bloomberg terminal and the data addendum associated. The understanding of how and when you can gain access to the market data and use it within your enterprise can be challenging. However, with a clear understanding of the boundaries you can leverage the two business models Bloomberg have created with access to market data.
Often “high value” data usage is only needed for eyeball purposes and not to feed into downstream middle and back-office systems. By setting up some basic API authentication protocols you can receive approval from Bloomberg’s 3rd party development team and grant access to your Bloomberg Anywhere front office users to experience “high value” data eyeball consumption between multiple systems.
Contact Sherpa If you want to explore further how best to “sweat the asset” of the Bloomberg terminal and data APIs. We have helped firms get more out of their Bloomberg terminal and reduce overall data costs by investing in smarter market data architectures, workflows, and entitlement schemas.
