About the Repository

The Semantics Repository is a project of the EDM Council. The purpose of the repository is to standardize the terms and definitions of all the reference and market data attributes used by the financial industry for business processing, investment decisions, scenario modeling, risk management, portfolio valuation and reporting.

The EDM Council operates from the perspective that precision of business semantics used by the financial industry are the foundation of effective data management. As such, all these terms need to be precisely tagged to avoid the problem of common terms that have different meaning, common meanings that use different terms and vague definitions that don’t capture critical nuances.

There are thousands of data attributes, delivered by hundreds of internal and external sources and stored in dozens of unconnected databases. Without precision of term names and definitions, financial institutions will have a difficult time comparing data and will find it hard to set precedence rules at the attribute level. Without commonly accepted semantics they will experience challenges in automating business processes for better STP and will have difficulties in exchanging data and communications instructions with counterparties. Without precise data meaning, firms will find it hard to feed analytical models and calculation engines with confidence, hard to create consistent benchmarks for meeting the terms of investment agreements and hard to do cross-asset risk analysis.

In short, inconsistent business semantics contribute to the lack of confidence in data resources and increase the cost of doing business. Unambiguous nomenclature and precise attribute definitions are absolutely critical to the way financial institutions operate.