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Paris - May 30, 2002 - - Advances in text mining technology and emerging XML standards in finance are revolutionizing the ability to extract value from textual data and enabling integrated text and data analysis at financial firms. This is the conclusion of the new management report "Leveraging Unstructured Data in Investment Management" from The Intertek Group.

The report reviews basic text mining technology and advances in functionality such as summarization and visualization which are adding powerful analytical capability. Industry take-up of the technology is discussed and implementations at buy- and sell-side institutions presented.

The report also reviews progress in establishing XML standards in finance. These standards will stipulate how the entire universe of financial information, from time series to analyst reports, corporate reporting and news, will be described. The report examines how these standards will enhance search capability, enabling powerful queries on semi-structured data, and facilitate combining data and text mining operations in applications such as the analysis of events on stock prices and volumes traded. Implications for the IT infrastructure (the database, data model and query languages) are discussed.

"In today's difficult business environment, with the number of analysts on the sell side dropping and the number of firms being researched likewise dropping, these developments hold the promise of allowing market participants to use more sources of information efficiently," said Sergio Focardi, co-author of the report.

"We also expect to see much more in the way of the integrated analysis of structured and unstructured data in applications such as fundamental research, credit and event analysis, compliance and CRM," Mr. Focardi added. "There are already implementations at financial firms and recent moves by data mining software suppliers indicate that the major players are or will shortly be present."

The last section of the report looks at factors affecting the take-up of the technology and the structuring of the supply side. According to the authors of the report, the challenge to suppliers is triple:

· the pace of change, with the accent shifting from the need to handle unstructured data to developments in XML standards which are transforming unstructured data into semi-structured data;
· the need to add value in terms of functionality, without exceeding the market's ability to effectively use the functionality;
· a continued need to invest in R&D, which some will find hard in today's difficult business environment.

The report "Leveraging Unstructured Data in Investment Management" is based on conversations with more than 50 persons from buy- and sell-side financial institutions, technology vendors, content and ASP providers, representatives from industry consortia working on establishing XML standards, and researchers from academia and industry.


ABOUT THE INTERTEK GROUP
The Intertek Group is a Paris-based firm that provides research, consulting and training on advanced IT and modeling techniques in the financial services sector and industry at large. It counts among its clients major financial institutions, industry associations and technology vendors.

Title of the report: "Leveraging Unstructured Data in Investment Management"
Authors: Sergio Focardi and Caroline Jonas
Number of pages: 65
Available: May 2002
Price: Euro 195.-

The Management Summary and Table of Contents as well as the order form are available on The Intertek Group web site: www.theintertekgroup.com