Challenge

• Strengthen ability to make data-driven decisions with simplified data consolidation and analysis.

Solution

• Rollout Pentaho: Data Integration and Analytics to increase the efficiency and quality of critical business reporting.

Outcome

• Enhanced ability to make data-driven decisions.
• Improved agility and competitive advantage with faster data analysis.
• Reduced time spent on ETL (extract, transform, load) by 70%.

Challenge : Reducing business risk with data-driven decisions

Digitalization has revolutionized how we bank, how we shop and how we communicate. It has helped us simplify processes, increase efficiency and improve visibility. With its digital trading platform, MarketAxess has been bringing all these benefits to buying and selling bonds since 2000. The company also has AI-based predictive pricing solutions to provide transparency into global markets.

MarketAxess’s award-winning platform is now used by more than 1,800 financial institutions. “Our digital platform makes it easier to trade bonds,” explains Dale Bloom, Credit Risk Analytics Manager at MarketAxess. “Our technology is changing how the bond market works by enabling greater price transparency, supporting client demand for real-time pricing information to inform and improve execution quality.”

To continue the MarketAxess success story, its business leaders need to keep making good decisions. And to do that, they need accurate and fast reporting. The Credit and Market Risk team is responsible for providing these reports and developing data analysis strategies to support optimized decision-making across the business.

With a plethora of different data sources, the team needs to be able to quickly and easily consolidate data for analysis, but its existing ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) solutions were not adequate. “Teams were using various ETL solutions, but they tended to be either low-code or no-code and limited in their capabilities,” comments Bloom. “We needed a solution that was easy to integrate, cost-effective and scalable.”

Solution : Simplified business reporting with faster data consolidation

To simplify data consolidation processes, MarketAxess started to rollout Data Integration and Analytics powered by Pentaho technology in January 2022. “We selected the Pentaho solution as I’d used it before at a previous firm with great success,” explains Bloom. “There are lots of solutions out there, but Data Integration and Analytics is really flexible, has great functionality, and is easy to integrate.”

Bloom started using Pentaho Community Edition, which took less than an hour to set up, and the company is now rolling out the Enterprise Edition. “It is really simple to access support for the solution via the Pentaho portal – whether you need documentation or engineer assistance,” says Bloom. “The quality of the customer service response is 10 out of 10.”

The Credit and Market Risk team now uses Data Integration and Analytics, part of Pentaho to aggregate and transform data, with sources ranging from Oracle databases to APIs connected to vendor solutions. With Data Integration and Analytics, the team can set parameters to run iterative jobs, and gain a clear view of enterprise data. “We can easily spot data integrity issues and debug them within the solution’s interface,” comments Bloom. “It’s very powerful and saves a great deal of time.”

The aim is to eventually deploy the solution to teams globally. “Even users without prior coding or data ETL experience will be able to quickly pick up Data Integration and Analytics, part of Pentaho , as it is very intuitive to use,” adds Bloom.

Outcome : Increased competitive advantage and reduced risk

Now, when the CEO or CRO (Chief Risk Officer) requests a complex analysis to understand risk-reward and support business decisions, the Global Credit and Market Risk team can easily pull together the data they need. “We can arrive at solutions much faster than we used to,” says Bloom. “When you can free up people’s time, it’s a no-brainer. And with better visibility of risks and exposures, the leadership team can make the best decisions for the business and its customers.”

As well as enabling better decisions, using the solution has also reduced ETL development time by around 70%, which has a significant impact on the team’s efficiency. Once Data Integration and Analytics has been rolled out more widely, MarketAxess will also be able to leverage data to improve sales more easily, which will contribute to the company’s ongoing growth. “With Data Integration and Analytics, part of Pentaho, we have the foundations we need to be more agile in assessing and responding to changing market conditions,” comments Bloom. “This will help us reduce risk and boost our competitive advantage.”