ADaM Use Cases - Spreadsheet Risk
Spreadsheets were once considered as a modeling tool within Financial circles. Today these tools are sophisticated and complex. In many cases they have now become an integral part of a financial institutions pricing and risk management function. However, the controls to know, plan and control their dependencies and hence the inherent risks is in its infancy.
In a recent presentation by the UK Financial Services Authority they highlighted their guidelines on spreadsheet governance. These included -
- Audit trai – ‘Tamper proof’ record of changes
- Version control + backup
- Segregation of duties
- Code checking / code reading
- Testing
- Maintainability
As a tactical solution to specific spreadsheet dependency requirements, ADaM’s fast-track discovery modules and Data Transformation utilities offer an effective way to identify core dependencies between spreadsheets and map them into the ADaM Framework.
The built in governance and audit features of the ADaM Framework provides both ownership, dependencies and visibility across the business globally.
For Market Data professionals, the ADaM Framework provides the mechanism to manage not only the core infrastructure, the myriad of vendor applications and the internal data dependencies for your platform, but it can also provide visibility of the organization’s spreadsheet dependencies.
The Spreadsheet Discovery Adaptor for the ADaM Framework finds all those real-time Add-ins, identifies the downstream linking of Exchange information and proves to the Auditors and Compliance that you are operational in control of your spreadsheet risks.
The Spreadsheet dependency adaptor has support for Add-ins like Bloomberg, Reuters, PowerPlus Pro, Arcontec, Speedwell or Caplin, as well as links to data from the organization’s Trading platform or Finance system.
The ADaM Framework will also identify the dependency between the Front Office spreadsheets and those used by the Middle and Back Office, ensuring that you have visibility of the onward distribution of fee liable data.
The adoption of the ADaM Framework provides a workbench that enables an organization to monitor and control business dependencies and produce meaningful reports which highlight technical and operational risks.