14 Feb 2003: UBS Warburg Embraces RIXML for Internal Research

The Research Information Markup Language (RIXML) protocol for research information received a significant boost with the news that UBS Warburg will adopt RIXML for its new internal research distribution platform. The firm plans to start disseminating research internally using RIXML next month.

UBS Warburg has been a keen participant in the RIXML working group. A senior executive in its equity e-products group, Andrew Ling, co-chairs the RIXML steering committee. The firm already uses RIXML tagging to distribute its research externally. It currently sends RXML-tagged research to seven buy-side firms.

At UBS Warburg, RIXML-tagged research will start with in the equities area. Once that is live, the firm plans to add coverage by asset class, starting with fixed income. It expects to have all of its internal research in RIXML-based format by the end of the year. Coverage of fixed income securities was added to the RIXML protocol last July, when the group issued version 2 of the schema.

UBS Warburg is in talks with aggregators – such as Thomson Financial, Researchsummary.com and Multex – about providing RIXML-tagged research for their services. Researchsummary.com is one of the main protagonists of the RIXML protocol. The company recently went live with Researchsummary Professional (RSPro), the first web-based portal to provide access to research produced using RIXML.

In its initial incarnation, RSPro will receive research contributions from 11 brokers: Bear Stearns, Cazenove, CIBC, CLSA, Credit Lyonnais Securities, HSBC, ING Financial Markets, Lehman Brothers, MTS, UBS and WestLB Panmure. Researchsummary plans to add research from a further 20 brokers within a month. Currently, coverage extends to some 15,000 corporations.