TOWARDS A STANDARDIZED LANGUAGE FOR FINANCIAL DATA SERVICES: A TAXONOMY AND ONTOLOGICAL MODEL

Abstract

The financial data services industry is complex, with numerous financial instruments and limited suppliers. The lack of a common language and standardized methodologies for taxonomy development poses challenges to the understanding and comparison of vendors' commercial offerings. This paper proposes a taxonomy and ontological model for the financial data services domain to address these challenges. The taxonomy organizes financial information services hierarchically, while the ontological model offers a conceptualization and specification of the domain for the development of applications based on semantic technologies. The taxonomy was developed empirically using three levels of reality and validated using closed card sorting and in-depth sessions with vendors of data. The ontological model is based on the OWL 2 ontology language and Description Logic and includes data vendors' classes and attributes that qualify the relationships between the ontology's objects. The proposed taxonomy and ontological model provide a common language and reference data standards for financial market services that capture the diversified, complex, and evolving nature of financial market data services. The taxonomy can facilitate strategic sourcing activities and improve spend analysis by providing a classification that is granular in terms of cost items and in line with the services used, regardless of the type of supplier and license agreement