The data dilemma

While institutions continue to put huge resources into creating standard repositories holding 'golden copies' of financial data, there is growing support for the view that the industry would be better off standardising the data at source, and thereby reduce systemic risk. Clive Davidson reports

Forensic examination of the financial crisis has identified a lack of information - or perhaps more pertinently, lack of a coherent framework in which to look at that information - as a leading culprit. When Lehman Brothers failed in September 2008, many banks were unable to determine a clear picture of what their overall exposures were, while regulators also struggled to piece together the bigger