Recent world events, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, have sent shockwaves reverberating through the global economy, and various market forces are feeling the causal effects. Data gathered digitally across the financial services industry (FSI) are no different, with trading volumes surging in response to myriad variables, including global supply chain uncertainty, rising inflation, and interest rates, not to mention fragile energy reserves.

Real-time market data is in high demand, even as markets around the Asia Pacific (APAC) region trade lower thanks to inflation and interest rate pressure. If anything, the worsening global outlook will harm the ability to ingest data updates, with outsized trading volumes expected to be reflected in high levels of data output.

The data overflow is not just hitting trading desks but now affects the length of the organization as increased digitalization efforts mean that data and analytics are embraced in record numbers to inform efficiencies company-wide. The digital financial landscape is exploding with new opportunities to capitalize on real-time data from various sources that can accelerate new products’ time to market.

Capping off the strong digitalization drive in the region are the record investments in the public cloud, with GlobalData expecting the APAC cloud computing market to surpass US$190 billion in the next two years. With wholesale migration to cloud environments underway in many sectors, use cases for market data in the cloud are popping up throughout financial services firms.

But as data volumes increase, the previously disconnected individual links in the FSI to stream market data – from phone lines to cache servers to business-ready applications – need to be manually upgraded to keep pace with expanding capacities. To justify the new expenditure, market data teams often have to make their business case for the new investment beforehand – resulting in fresh cost overruns.

Transitioning to the cloud as part of an overarching digital transformation push can neatly step in here and supply significant cost and business agility benefits. For example, alongside creating a single continuum of market data that connects the front office to the middle and back offices, moving to a cloud-based subscription model for data tracking needs can free up IT budgets overloaded with digitalization drives. This can channel costs into a different budget, altering how such expenditures are viewed from an accounting perspective.

Unlocking the efficiencies of data and analytics can help firms harness quality market data faster. The advantages of cloud-based automation and artificial intelligence capabilities outstrip legacy data infrastructure’s capabilities.

Public cloud players like AWS and Azure place a premium on heightened cybersecurity infrastructure, maintaining higher standards of data integrity and infrastructure resilience than an FSI’s traditional reliance on on-premises data centers. Overheads from in-house servers, switches, and network systems can be done away with entirely instead of transitioning to cloud-based options to pull the necessary information.

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But with much financial and market data coming from disparate sources, integration challenges abound during these digital transformation drives, and data silos still represent a major challenge. That’s true for up to 94% of APAC organizations, according to the 2022 edition of MuleSoft’s Connectivity Benchmark Report. Another 92% of APAC respondents said these integration headaches remain obstacles to quick and effective digital transformation.

An InterSystems and Vitreous World survey found that APAC financial institutions were aware of being held back from fully harnessing data, with mastering data management topping the list of demands on resources (over half or 54% of surveyed APAC business leaders), followed by replacing legacy systems (49%) and improved access to decision-making and real-time data (48%) rounding out the top three needed changes.

Real-time data and personalized experiences are what customers increasingly demand from their financial services, and fortunately, APAC organizations are aware of this. 93% of APAC organizations said in the MuleSoft report that they now have a clear integration and API strategy – essentially leveraging APIs to connect applications and data in a cloud-based environment.

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That’s what public cloud-hosted platform Refinitiv Real-Time – Optimized offers financial firms looking to offset costs while upping their agility when they harness market data. Disparate data sources can be easily discovered by using identifiers compliant with industry standards, ensuring streamlined onboarding and integration with downstream applications.

Providing access support to 90 million financial instruments across 550 venues, Refinitiv Real-Time – Optimized provides flexible market data tiers and a host of APIs to serve any business need. Costs and networks are managed side-by-side instead of orchestrating another expensive IT project – in the process, new capital funding can be secured, allowing firms to proactively switch positions and respond fast to shifting market conditions.

Real-Time – Optimized is compatible with all other Refinitiv real-time solutions, including the real-time service with the datasets on the Refinitiv Data Platform (including symbology, ESG, historical, and many more). An array of connectivity options are available for varied budgets and use cases, including increasing connections to load balance better. On the most widely-used public cloud service, Amazon Web Services, clients can connect via Private Link for even more endpoints.

Real-Time- Optimized is best practice for firms that need to work with market data in the cloud cost-efficiently but prioritize speed and agility.