Matching Bloomberg and Refinitiv Symbols for OTC Derivative Clearing
Summary
The document outlines a way to reconcile instrument identifiers when OTC derivative trades arrive from systems using Bloomberg and Refinitiv symbols. Its proposed first check is to compare ISINs when both are supplied, then consult an internal lookup table containing vendor identifiers and other security attributes such as name, CUSIP, ticker, and SEDOL. It also notes that populating the table would require vendor reference data and raises the practical challenge of consolidating those records into one entry per security.
The material is a preliminary design question rather than a validated matching procedure. It gives no tested results or rules for handling missing, conflicting, stale, or non-unique identifiers; name matching alone may be ambiguous. A production process would need reliable identifier precedence, data quality checks, and controls for instrument changes, but these are not developed in the document.
Key ideas
- Compare ISINs when they accompany incoming Bloomberg and Refinitiv symbols.
- Maintain an internal cross-reference table for vendor codes and other security identifiers.
- Vendor reference data may be needed to populate and maintain the table.
- Security names are suggested as a possible matching aid, though the document does not establish that names uniquely identify instruments.
Tags
Full text
# Matching of Symbols from Bloomberg and refinitiv , for OTC derivatives trade clearing # Matching of Symbols from Bloomberg and refinitiv , for OTC derivatives trade clearing I have been researching on this Scenario , since few days : - Actually I have scenario , where we are dealing with OTC derivatives and BUY/SELL order can be punched in on different systems like Buy using data from Bloomberg and Sell using Data from Refinitiv . Both Bloomberg and Refinitiv can refer to same instrument with different SYMBOL/Code , for eg APPLE can be referred with BBG_ID --> 'X' on Bloomberg and with RIC_ID --> 'Y' on Refinitv . Finally when post trade activities take place on our system , system should be able to identify that X & Y refer to same instrument which is Apple . My Approach : - - Firstly check if the incoming Symbols/code from bloomberg and Refintiv are accompanied with ISIN and if they are accompanied with ISIN then match the ISIN to confirm if it is same security. - Secondly we will also need to have a look_up table in place . - In case ISINs are not available in STEP 1 , then we move to look up table - Strutcture of look_up table : - look_up identifier bloomberg_id refinitiv_id security_name cusip ticker isin sedol - In order to have the look_up table we will need to purchase the data from Bloomberg and other data vendors . My question : - Any suggestions/opinions/improvements to my approach ? Secondly I am still doubting the fact , that even if we purchase data from vendors in order to populate the look_up table , it is still difficult to read data that data and create a single record in the look_up table for a security . Only thing that comes to my mind is Security name --> we can search by security_name in the data provided by bloomberg/Refinitiv and correspondingly make a single unique entry as per our look_up table structure . Request : - Please don't provide answers involving 3rd party symbology services like Magtia . Please help me refine the mentioned approach or provide a similar approach not involving any 3rd party services
Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.