Market data · Benchmark data · Reference data
Know your license, what it costs, who sees it, and if it's right for you.
We're not generalist consultants. Paraxis is the independent advisory practice for investment data: we right-size what it costs, make its use defensible under audit, and design the function that keeps both true after we leave.
Three pressures on the investment data function
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Vendor and exchange audits
Audits reach back three to five years, and the findings cluster in the same few places: non-display use that was never declared, derived data redistributed past the licensed entity, and user counts that drifted from the unit of measure the contract actually defines. Feeding licensed content to a model or an agent is the newest of them, and agreements written before that use say very little about it.
Compliance and audit
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Cost that rises without a decision
Market data is among the largest non-compensation lines at most firms, and one of the few that grows every year by default. Contractual uplifts compound, entitlements outlive the people they were provisioned for, and the invoice is seldom reconciled against what is actually consumed. The line gets scrutinized when the budget is set, rather than at renewal, which is the only point at which it can be changed.
Commercial and cost
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Everyone asks for the same record
Internal audit, client due-diligence questionnaires, and third-party risk reviews all ask one question in different words: what data does the firm consume, under whose license, and who controls access to it. The evidence is the entitlement record, which is also where a vendor audit begins. Most firms rebuild it from scratch each time it is requested.
Operating model and governance
What the practice covers.
The method is the same across all three. We establish what the firm licenses, reconcile it against what is actually consumed, and produce a record that withstands vendor review, internal audit, and board scrutiny.
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Market data
Real-time and historical platforms, terminals, and feeds. Five areas, of which cost is one: what the contracts permit, whether entitlements match real use, who is allowed to decide, and whether the products suit the job they are doing.
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Benchmark data
Index and benchmark families across every provider the firm licenses. We normalize fee models, match the licensed footprint to the consumed one, and reconcile the inventory against funds and products on every renewal cycle.
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Reference data
Security master, pricing master, corporate actions. We consolidate overlapping sources, evidence what the licenses permit downstream, and write the arbitration rules most firms have never put on paper.
The Speedway Assessment
A fixed-scope diagnostic of the market data function.
A fixed-fee, fixed-scope review that evaluates each area of the market data function, from vendor exposure and licensing posture through entitlements and operating model, and ranks them by priority. Delivered on a fixed timetable, it produces a roadmap to reduce cost, strengthen compliance, and improve operating efficiency, and a document the firm keeps regardless of what it does next.
Index and benchmark data is assessed separately. Folding it into this one would stop it being a short, fixed-scope engagement.
Who we support.
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Asset managers
Index, benchmark, and reference data costs rising faster than AUM. Licensing models that punish ETF and direct-indexing growth. Benchmark inventory reconciled against actual portfolio use, and unneeded families retired at renewal.
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Investment banks
Real-time and historical platforms at scale. Audit posture across every exchange and vendor read simultaneously rather than one letter at a time.
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Hedge funds
Alternative data spend defended against actual research output. Trial-to-license motions structured to keep the option to walk away.
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Private equity and family offices
A market data function spun up for a new vertical, or rationalized after a portfolio acquisition. Sized for the work, not the brochure.
The five seats at the table.
Each seat wants a different thing from the same engagement. One piece of work has to answer all five.
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COO / Chief Data Officer
Operating model & governance. Where the function actually lives, and who owns it.
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CFO / Head of Finance
Cost savings, avoidance, and audit exposure. Dollarized, chargeable, defensible.
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Head of Market Data / Operations
External benchmark and function uplift. Validation, ammunition, a playbook.
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Head of Procurement
Vendor leverage and renewal calendar. Inventory, sequencing, standard clauses.
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CRO / Head of Compliance
Audit risk and regulatory adjacency. A defensible file, a documented process, an exposure number with evidence behind it.
See what value each seat gets from a Paraxis Speedway Assessment
Why Paraxis
A discipline built specifically for institutional investment data.
Licensing complexity, vendor and exchange audits, and steady price increases have made this a discipline in its own right, and most firms are not structurally set up to run it. The work spans three kinds of data and three kinds of problem, and it is usually held by people who own something else as their day job. AI inference and machine-consumer applications add a category of demand that vendors are now pricing into, and auditing against.
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Efficiency
Licenses sized to actual usage. Vendors selected on total cost of ownership. Structural cost taken out of the run rate, not just deferred to the next renewal.
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Transparency
A vendor inventory the client can see in full. Entitlements mapped to actual user behavior. Audit defense files maintained current as a standing artifact.
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Focus
Investment data is the entire scope of the practice. We don't manage assets, we don't sell software, and we don't give investment advice.
Proven results
What the work has produced.
Transparency and control within four months of a major merger.
Inventory of the combined market data environment; consolidation of overlapping feeds and licenses; right-sized contracts negotiated on the renewal cycle.
- NewOperating model
- Double-digit% cost reduction
- 4 moEngagement
A global operating model across three offices on three continents.
Global current-state assessment; unified target operating model satisfying business, technology, and regulatory demand; phase-one contract right-sizing on actual usage data.
- UnifiedTarget operating model
- 3Continents
- Double-digitPhase-one % reduction