Thomson Reuters opens access to RICs

RICs are alphanumerical symbols that enable users to identify and retrieve data from desktops, feeds and other content services. They cover a broad range of content from Thomson Reuters across equities, bond markets, foreign exchange and money markets, commodities and energy, funds, indicators/indices and derivatives.

Financial services participants have fiercely guarded their own codes, resulting in more than 50 symbologies maintained by agencies and companies around the world.

Thomson Reuters is the target of a long-running investigation by EU anti-trust authorities into the availability of RICs, which serve as an asset identifier for trading. The EU has argued that the availability of up-to-date data at a reasonable cost is critical to a competitive market. Its initial assessment of the case found that restrictions imposed by Thomson Reuters created “substantial barriers” for customers to switch to alternative providers. It can fine companies up to 10 per cent of their annual turnover for breaching competition rules. European officials have warned that remedies proposed by Thomson Reuters are insufficient.

“This move by Thomson Reuters comes at a crucial time as the market faces serious pressure from regulators and executives to get a better handle on data across the organisation for reporting purposes and to better inform business decision-making,” said Virginie O’Shea, an analyst at Aite Group consultancy. “There is little appetite and scarce resources to adopt a new standard, so being able to work with one of the established data symbologies across the trade lifecycle will enable firms to tackle the cross-referencing exercise on the front foot.”

Thomson Reuters’ rival Bloomberg opened its system of security identifiers of more than 36 million securities for any company to adopt and use in 2010. ■