In capital markets (public and private) there is an atmosphere pushing towards Transparency, Real-time access, Low cost & Higher Quality, and Pay-as-you-Consume pricing models; especially in the Data and Metadata space. The Data space encompasses primary financial data and the Metadata space, refers to anything produced through analytics that can be used for evaluation and consideration in an investment decision.

Fintechs are taking the lead in using XBRL to “Democratize the Data and Metadata space” in multiple ways. A great example of this trend is evidenced through the partnership of Intrinio, a US financial app vendor with a heavy focus on financial data, and the new US stock exchange IEX, that just recently got approved by the SEC and is owned by the buy-side.

This partnership came out of the challenges of Intrinio’s journey to develop financial apps for valuing companies that can be easily used in Excel or Google sheets. Real-time data was a big hurdle that Inrinio faced, similar to other vendors and startups, because such data is really expensive.

It was the quest to find a way to access such data for their apps by slashing sustainably real-time data costs and avoiding redistribution fees, that lead them to use the XBRL technology to collect data. Intrinio first started with an algorithm that collects data from company documents for all US publicly traded companies (following the 2009 mandatory filing passed by Congress). The next step is the partnership with IEX pricing, which allows Intrinio to offer real time stock prices without the redistribution fees and offers attractive pricing packages. For example, Intrinio’s new Stock screener on Excel (ISE) can be used for free for up to 500 daily data points and thereafter, plans start as low as $10 per month. Such services, can reduce substantially costs for investment bank boutiques, financial analysts, hedge funds etc. The third front on which Intrinio is working on, is taking advantage of the XBRL technology and their in-house algorithms to read and process data from the US consortium of agencies, Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council – FFIEC which has also adopted the XBRL reporting standards. The FFIEC is made up of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). XBRL reporting has resulted already in higher quality and accuracy of data reported for all Banking call reports that are widely used int eh industry to evaluate the US Banking sector that encompasses 8,000 banks. The new process that has been a huge collaborative effort amongst the banks that have been gradually adopting these standards is explained here by FFIEC and can be visualized below.

Intrinio is beta testing this process and is aiming to be able to offer this specific dataset to its subscribers either through the ISE or through its API.

Last but not least, Intrinio announced just last week that one more bridge is going to be built and this one is XBRL with Blockchain. The focus on this collaboration is more on transparency, low cost and high quality also. Factom, a blockchain-based solution to manage data and keep records, will be fed by Intrinio financial data that will be “onboarded” on the blockchain that Factom has developed that has no size limitations.

We are witnessing an XBRL led democratization in financial data that is aiming to be accessible through low cost subscriptions and pay-as-you-consume pricing plans, to anyone. At the same time, this greater quality data and metadata, will be fed through APIs or Blockchains into financial apps that vendors employ or startups are testing. Rachel Carpenter, the CEO of Intrinio, a femtech leader is stressing the fact that there are no redistribution fees in the world that they are envisioning, access is easy through financial APIs and blockchains. Intrinio is also a sponsor of the Fintech Sandbox and StartupBootcamp, supporting the development of Fintech startups along with Xignite, Thomson Reuters, Quovo and others.

Daily Fintech Advisers provides strategic consulting to organizations with business and investment interests in Fintech & operates the Fintech Genome P2P Knowledge Network.  Efi Pylarinou is a Digital Wealth Management thought leader.