GRSS
Global Rate Set System (GRSS) is a firm of industry experts that has been providing services and expertise in the financial benchmark and index space since it was founded in 2009. GRSS understands the unique challenges faced by benchmark administrators seeking to gain regulatory approval and cover increasing governance costs. Expert Developments have been working with GRSS since GRSS was formed.
GRSS operate both as a benchmark administrator and as a provider of services to other benchmark administrators. They offer services to help benchmark administrators and index providers meet European Benchmark Regulations (BMR), either as a European based benchmark administrator or as a third country administrator seeking equivalence, recognition or endorsement. They offer solutions to benchmark governance, operations, technology and data licensing. GRSS provides calculating agent and data licencing services to the European Money Market Institute (EMMI) who administer the critical benchmarks Euribor and Eonia. GRSS also operates as the benchmark administrator of PRIBOR via their subsidiary, the Czech Financial Benchmark Facility.
GRSS is purposefully focused as an independent specialist in financial benchmarking without real or perceived conflicts of interest.
Vendor Platform
Expert created a centralised platform for distributing XML financial data to information vendors such as Bloomberg, Refinitiv (formally Thompson Reuters), Interactive Data, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), etc.
The data is required to be distributed in real time so a push service was developed so data can be disseminated as soon as it is available. The Information Vendors connect to the service via a sockets session; heartbeat messages are sent every 60 seconds so the vendor knows the connection is live. When data is available, this is sent in a burst of packets to the vendors who then ingest the data and distribute to their clients within their networks in their chosen format. Two-way communication is also supported so vendors can issue commands such as QUIT to gracefully exit a session, or RETRIEVE PRIBOR 2019-06-21 to retrieve historical market data for a specified date that the vendor is permissioned for.
The service allows for multiple connections from each vendor to cater for redundancy and failover in the event of a network issue with the vendor, ensuring that the data is always delivered on time. If data can’t be delivered due to no connectivity with a vendor, it is queued and then distributed in sequence when the vendor next connects, ensuring no data loss.
Data is passed into the Vendor Platform from a supplier via a WCF web service as XML, however this is not limited to just XML data. The supplier can also configure what data is sent, to which vendors and whether there are any intended delays for data delivery, on a vendor-by-vendor basis.
All activity within the vendor platform is logged.
The service was written in Microsoft.NET and can run as a Windows Service or as a console application, allowing it to run within a Windows server environment or as a Docker image.
An accompanying web interface was also developed for management and maintenance of the system, allowing for authenticated users to manage data suppliers, vendors and their connections and other vendor platform users’ accounts. Logs are also accessible for auditing and diagnosing potential issues, as well as a summary of vendors, so their connection state can be monitored in real time.
The web interface was written using Microsoft .NET Core, and Angular, using both Bootstrap and Material components for the UX.
To learn more about GRSS visit their website: globalrateset.com
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