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Avox Launches Global Business Entity Directory – wiki-data


WEBWIRE

Initiative supports open global standards for business entity data

Avox, a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse, is opening up access to a subset of over two hundred thousand verified and maintained business entity data records of its content. On www.wiki-data.com, users will find basic information about those business entities including their legal name, country of incorporation and operation, state/province/region and city of operation (where applicable) and an Avox identifier (AVID).

Avox is publishing this information for free usage in an effort to help facilitate a common standard for business entity data. Any data record with an AVID attached has been comprehensively verified and is maintained by Avox’s team of data experts. It is also continuously checked by clients and partners because of the built in feedback loop established between these user organizations and Avox. With this launch, the entire world can participate in and benefit from the increased level of maintenance, enhancement and consistency of the content.

“The industry has been demanding a low cost business entity data standard for years” says Ken Price, CEO and co-founder of Avox. “We believe this is a big step toward achieving such a standard however we fully intend to collaborate with other key industry players who will add content and significant value to the offering. A successful standard must be a shared standard in our view.” Price points to partnerships with S&P, Markit, IDC and SWIFT as examples of this collaboration.

Julia Sutton, Global Head of Customer Accounts for the Institutional Client Group at Citigroup commented “Wiki-data is yet another example of the collaborative model at work. Anyone that uses data from wiki-data.com will be consistent with a number of major industry players including Citi, Barclays and Nomura. We see this as a major efficiency play as usage expands.”

Richard Snookes, Director, Global Reference Data at Barclays Capital says “By taking the decision to allow the use of their AVID identifier as unlicensed content, Avox have removed one of the key obstacles to creating a genuine community for counterparty identification. The user experiencing a loss related to a bad piece of data quickly effects a transition to being the user with the most accurate data. The wiki-data model magnifies these transitions across multiple data fields and users to present an extremely powerful tool with real scalability"

Users can purchase additional data attributes or regular updates of the complete file as an annual subscription. Third parties can license the content as the basis for their directory and identification services. Internet access of the data for primary usage is restriction and cost free. The key objective is for all major industry participants to use the same underlying data.

Price notes that the data will be of extremely high quality, “That’s the nature of the beast. One of the great benefits of the Internet is that we can now leverage a global community of data checkers who can point out remaining potential errors, changes or omissions which our central team of data experts can address straight away. There is no better way of maximizing data quality.” Additional capabilities such as online record linking, user commentary and the facility to add new records which can be verified by Avox or other firms are planned for the future.

A blog has been established at http://avoxinfo.blogspot.com/ where anyone can openly comment, criticize and/or make suggestions for improvements to the platform and the content. There is also a LinkedIn group set up called the “Avox Business Entity Discussion Forum” for those who use that platform. Wiki-data and the blog can also be accessed directly from www.avox.info.

About Avox
Avox, a majority owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse Group, manages a shared pool of business entity data for which updates are regularly contributed to by an international client base. Every data record and every proposed change is manually checked against up-to-date content from other authoritative sources including regulators, business registries and company filings. All verified changes are broadcast, complete with a full audit trail, to all subscribing clients. Data processed by Avox includes corporate hierarchies, addresses, industry codes, identifiers, regulatory content and links to issued securities.

Related links
Wiki-Data on www.avox.info



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