Exchange Ancillary Services

Exchange Ancillary Services ("EAS") is a specialist Market Data Auditing and Consulting firm which is based in Donegal in the North Western corner of Ireland. We were founded with the explicit mission to provide bespoke and comprehensive auditing solutions to the many categories of Data Content Providers which form the back-bone of the Market Data Industry world-wide.

The firm was founded in mid-2004 by Rory Quinlan, a well known figure in the Market Data Industry for the past two decades. Rory commenced his Market Data Auditing career at the London International Financial Futures and Option Exchange ("LIFFE") where he audited LIFFE data sets extensively. Additionally, he audited data sets originating form the London Traded Options Market ("LTOM") and also, the London Commodity Exchange ("LCE") as these Exchanges were integrated into LIFFE.

Subsequently, Rory joined the London Stock Exchange Group ("LSEG") in the capacity of Market Data Audit Manager designing, implementing, and completing Market Data Audit Programmes and Market Data Assignments on behalf of a number of major Index Providers, Derivative and Equity Exchanges in addition to his employer, the LSEG.

Exchange Ancillary Services prides itself on providing fully transparent Market Data Auditing services which have been designed on the basis that the ongoing relationships between the primary Data Content Providers, the Quote Vendor/Data Distributor population and the End-User population are valuable, symbiotic relationships in which Market Data is just one of the important elements in a complex and mutually beneficial on-going relationship.

 

At Exchange Ancillary Services we appreciate that one of the essential components in achieving a successful conclusion to any audit is the clear communication of the objectives of the audit and the required access to the audit material which will facilitate the formulation of an audit opinion with a high degree of audit assurance.

In addition, we keep the auditee fully appraised of the progress of the on-site audit work as the audit process occurs with the intended result that the auditee if fully aware of the contents of the audit report long before they actually receive the report.

Because we will only ever operate on behalf of one Data Content Provider executing a tailor-made audit programme during the course of any individual audit site visit, our customers' interests' are not compromised and their relationship with the auditee is protected. We do not operate as a "bucket-shop" audit firm conducting multiple superficial audits for multiple Data Content Providers during the course of a single site visit.

Bearing in mind that that under-payment of fees to the individual Data Content Providers generally occur because the reporting entities have built reporting models which fulfil the requirements of an idealised and standardised Data Content Provider rather than the actual requirements of individual Data Content Providers, it would certainly appear to compound reporting errors and add another layer of inaccuracy by then conducting audits using the bucket-shop standardised audit approach.

The questions are... "Can the "bucket-shop" audit approach provide anything by a cheap superficial audit of an individual set of proprietary day? Can an individual auditor execute a professional in-depth on site audit for 5 or 6 individual Data Content Providers over the course of a single on-site visit lasting as little as a day"?

Each individual Data Content Provider needs to decide if the responsibility for the execution of their Market Data Audit Programmes should be outsourced to a "bucket-shop" firm where the audit assignments placed are just another batch of audits to be quickly and superficially dispensed with by use of a standard report temp-plate using a standard audit process.

The alternative is a "tailor-made" audit approach designed to audit proprietary data sets according to the individual Data Content Providers Agreements, polices, requirements and best industry practice whilst always keeping to the fore that our auditees are also valuable customers of the contracting Data Content Provider. In addition, we always keep in sight the fact that the relationship with the auditee is more complex than just supplying data and that, ultimately, the enforcement of an audit outcome remains a matter for the contracting Data Content Provider.

If you are interested in our "tailor-made" Market Data Auditing solutions, please contact us directly and we will be pleased to discuss you requirements in the strictest of confidence.