IHS Markit, Illuminate Financial launch Fintech Data Program

Critical information, analytics and solutions platform IHS Markit has launched a Fintech Data Program, along with Illuminate Financial, a global venture capital firm, in order to offer early stage fintech startups with free or low-cost proprietary capital markets data from IHS Markit.

According to the release, Illuminate Financial will make use of its expertise in order to screen program applicants based on the strength of company management, development teams, business plans, funding, among others.

“Our mission is to help promising companies bring new technologies and new thinking to the financial sector and we are excited to work with IHS Markit to promote innovation in the capital markets industry,” Mark Whitcroft, founding partner at Illuminate Financial, stated.

The Fintech Data Program will select highly-qualified fintech companies and will be licensed, according to their use cases, to receive select fixed income and equity market datasets from IHS Markit. The datasets include indexes that involve Markit CDS index families, iBoxx bond indexes, and Markit purchasing manager’s indexes. It also includes analytics such as ETP data, private equity valuations, research signals, among others; and pricing and reference data that involves bonds, commodities, CDS, OTC derivatives, securities lending pricing data, syndicated loans, among others.

“High-quality market data are the building blocks of financial services technology, but access can be costly for early stage companies. This program removes that barrier and helps the next generation of fintech startups accelerate the product development cycle and bring more innovation to our market,” Sally Moore, managing director and head of strategic alliances at IHS Markit, stated.