FOW Professional – a major milestone in FOW history

Autumn 2024 will herald a major milestone in FOW’s history with the launch of FOW Professional, a new online platform, and new way to deliver all of FOW’s content in one place – our extensive derivatives reference data covering 115+ exchanges, combined with timely market analysis and industry insights.

Spearheading this new product development initiative is David Calver, Chief Product Officer, who joined FOW earlier this year. David’s decision to join FOW after an extensive career as an economist and data research and analytics specialist was influenced in no small part by the proposed revamp of its news, market intelligence and financial data businesses, and what he describes as “Irresistible parallels” between FOW’s new strategic direction and other major projects he’d undertaken in previous roles. As he observes “I’ve spent the last 30 years or so bringing data, research and technology platforms together. This is a very exciting time for FOW. We’ve built a platform that brings data and research together in a much more readily accessible way”.

Market reach is a critical component of the new FOW Professional proposition, driven by demand from a far bigger set of market participants to benefit from FOW’s high integrity, specialist data, market intelligence and industry insights.

FOW already has the best derivatives reference data available today, sourced from global exchanges and standardised for a consistent and efficient user experience, wherever that user may sit in the front to back transaction lifecycle. For the first time, this will sit alongside FOW’s insights and industry intelligence, accessible on a subscription basis, and enabling users to dip in and out of the specialist FOW intelligence pool in a much more agile and cost effective way.

FOW Professional is not replacing FOW’s traditional service delivery of highly customised data feeds, and complementary data management tools, integrated directly within financial firms’ enterprise systems to support client-specified transaction processes and reporting workflows. This ‘premium’ service and associated specialist service support will continue to be available. In fact, FOW Professional offers a fast and highly effective way to demonstrate the enormous value of FOW reference data and market intelligence, paving the way for a conversation about a more bespoke solution.

Data feed integration is of course a much more complex business. The team that needs the data to support particular transaction lifecycle workflows may have to jump through multiple internal permissioning, implementation and procurement hoops in order to integrate it. This can mean that the original value proposition becomes less and less appealing in relation to the effort and time required to navigate all the necessary ‘procurement’ steps, to the extent that projects often fail to reach the finish line.

FOW Professional resolves this headache with agile and scalable access to specialist data and content, on a subscription basis, that doesn’t involve significant resource allocation (people and investment) to procure or implement. Online delivery means there is no technology required to ‘connect’ data feeds, access is on the basis of a simple licensing agreement and subscription payment model. Moreover, licensed users, from the front to the back office, can access FOW Professional and use the data on any device, at any time, from any location.

Underpinning the new FOW Professional service, and core to all FOW products and services is the quality and depth of its truly market-leading data.

For over 29 years, FOW has excelled in the provision of specialist futures and options data and market intelligence to the world’s leading financial institutions. While other service providers may have broader coverage, FOW has remained focused on this particular segment of financial trading. As such, it has been able to develop and hone its specialist knowledge of derivatives reference data and to apply this expertise to standardise, normalise and map from myriad sources into consistent formats and ensure that every single contract is displayed in exactly the same way.

In terms of data accuracy, the most common customer requests to FOW every week relate to data verification and validation “Can you tell us what this is?” in an increasingly regulated global financial market place. Due diligence to ensure accurate trade reconciliation and reporting compliance is an imperative; nobody wants to have to manage the repercussions of getting it wrong. At the trade lifecycle front end, FOW Professional will give all users access to volume data from 100+ exchanges. A trader looking up reference data for a specific contract, for example, can jump straight into volume data, or tick sizes, to assess how liquid the contract is, and view associated market intelligence to quickly inform trading decisions.

Of course, many financial organisations and firms will already source data directly from exchanges and other data providers. Some of the bigger institutions may even have invested in the resources to manage the collection and ‘normalisation’ of data themselves. Both user segments can still benefit from FOW Professional to augment their data validation capabilities and processes.