Avox, a network of financial services providers for the verification of counterparty data, has signed a cooperation agreement with VÖB, the Association of German Public Sector Banks (Bundesverband Öffentlicher Banken Deutschlands). The agreement aims to enable common marketing activities among member institutions of VÖB Services, a 100% subsidiary of VÖB which offers products and services in the areas of banking supervision, risk management and IT services.
“High data quality is becoming increasingly important to financial institutions in light of the transparency requirements set out in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). This cooperation means that our members can use Avox’s services to meet the requirements of the Directive and the respective validation requirements”, says Dr. Mathias Deckert, managing director, VÖB Services.
Avox, which became a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse in 2005, specialises in the validation, enrichment and cleansing of corporate data and was launched in conjunction with several financial services institutions with the aim of enhancing data quality. Avox validates the data acquired from the clients using independent research from authoritative resources and corrects errors in data records. Members of the Avox community include Citigroup, Barclays Capital, the Bank of Scotland and Dresdner Kleinwort.
MiFID has prompted Avox to expand its service offering to include the Avox ID service. Avox researches the key performance indicators required by MiFID, including total assets, net annual turnover and capital, and splits the clients into suitable counterparties, professional clients and private clients on request. Avox allocates a unique ID, known as the Avid, to every business partner.
“Market participants can use the Avid to identify the parties involved in a transaction process quickly and in full. This guarantees an efficient process that is designed to improve data quality,” says Ken Price, CEO, Avox.