“The importance of data quality is really going up dramatically,” stated Stephan Leithner, Deutsche Börse executive board member, during his keynote. Deutsche Börse acquired Luxembourg-based fund data manager Kneip earlier this year, which will help the company build a “golden data hub” that will centralise and process data, he argued.
“The asset management industry has an enormous amount of data that is everyday increasing. And at the same time, there are multiple sources,” Leithner said during the conference on Wednesday. “So that creates naturally a challenge around having the right quality, and that is most exemplified around ESG.”
ESG challenges
“There are numerous challenges to be dealt with,” said Magdalena Kuper, head of sustainability at the German investment funds association BVI, during a panel on ESG and technology. These challenges include unclear regulatory concepts relevant to the implementation of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, a lack of clarity of what “sustainable” investments actually mean, what determines a positive contribution to an environmental or social objective, and what requirements must be met for the “no significant harm” assessment.