Picture this: an ambitious product team wants to launch an exciting new financial offering. Naturally, the request embarks on a convoluted journey sideways across the organisation long before anyone actually opens the contract. The person hunting for an answer is almost never the person who raised the question. Legal or vendor management must embark on a forensic treasure hunt to locate the right agreement, trace every single amendment signed over the years, and decipher whether the proposed use case is actually permitted.
“It starts with a product manager asking the data team if a specific data set or index can be used in a new product. The question then routes to legal or vendor management to find and interpret the licence. This could take weeks.”- Tina Fernandez, Founder & CEO, Consolidocs
Why does a market data licence check take so long?
Because the crucial paperwork is almost never neatly stored in one place, and there is rarely just a single contract involved. “Contracts may be split across systems, with amendments in shared drives,” Tina explains. “The safest answer is to go back to the supplier, adding more time and signalling a potential breach.”
The fragmented reality of the market only compounds the head-scratching. In its Wholesale Data Market Study, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed that only about one in five surveyed firms relied on a single market data vendor, while a sizeable portion juggled ten or more (FCA, February 2024). To make matters even more tangled, the same study highlighted that firms often need a direct licence from the original data creator (such as an exchange or index provider) alongside the vendor delivering the feed. That means managing two separate sets of complex terms for the exact same data, with rules that don't always align.
What happens if a firm uses market data outside its licence?
The true cost usually rears its head when you least expect it—during a gruelling audit. Stepping outside your licensed boundaries leads to painful audits, retroactive back billing, and products built on shaky foundations that don't cover real-world usage. Market participants echoed these exact frustrations to the regulator: users reported that vendor usage audits are notoriously onerous, time-consuming, and expensive, frequently followed by surprise fee hikes after detailed reviews of data distribution (FCA, February 2024). One vendor even noted that data generators increasingly insist on pre-approving downstream products. Worse still, respondents admitted that restrictive licensing constraints forced them to scale back or scrap new products altogether.
For an ambitious product manager, what should be a routine licence check suddenly morphs into a major launch risk. A product reliant on unlicensed data risks being pulled from the market, repriced, or hit with back-dated penalties long after go-live.
Why is market data licensing so hard to manage?
Because contracts quietly age in the background while the business dynamically evolves around them, and no single team holds the keys to the entire picture.
Most market data licences were signed years ago. Since then, the business has launched new products, opened new offices, and changed how it uses data, and each change has added another amendment. After enough of them, nobody can say with confidence what the firm is licensed to do. The work is also split across teams. Legal holds the contract, procurement manages the vendor, finance pays the invoices, and the data team uses the feed. Each team sees one part of the licence, and no single system brings those parts together.
Most market data licences were inked years ago. In the interim, the business has launched fresh offerings, expanded into new territories, and reshaped how it consumes data, with every shift layering on yet another amendment. Fast forward through years of changes, and nobody can say with total certainty what the firm is actually licensed to do. Meanwhile, responsibility remains fragmented: Legal holds the contract, Procurement manages the vendor, Finance pays the invoices, and the Data team runs the feed. Each department sees only a single piece of the puzzle, and no unified system connects the dots.
All the while, the financial stakes are skyrocketing. Research firm Burton-Taylor (part of TP ICAP) reports that global spending on market data reached a staggering $44.3 billion in 2024, reflecting a 6.4% year-on-year increase (Burton-Taylor, April 2025). On top of that, ongoing supplier consolidation reshuffles the deck: FCA survey respondents noted that following acquisitions, providers often alter terms to align with their new parent entity (FCA, February 2024).
What has to be in place before anyone can answer “can we use this data”?
You need the complete, current licence, without exceptions. That means uniting the master agreement, every order form, every schedule, and every single amendment into one chronological, coherent narrative. Missing even a single amendment can turn a confident 'yes' into a costly mistake. Finding every piece of the puzzle and guaranteeing nothing was overlooked is precisely why the process drags on for weeks.
How does CD Truth help?
CD Truth effortlessly constructs that single source of truth from your existing documentation. Simply upload your folders as they are no painstaking reorganisation or file renaming required. CD Truth intelligently analyses every document, organises them by supplier and agreement, and establishes a definitive legal position reflecting every active amendment.
It also shows what does not add up:
documents that other documents refer to but that are not in the folder;
unsigned and part-signed versions;
duplicates and drafts;
It also instantly spotlights underlying risks and discrepancies:
Every insight directly links back to its original source document, giving Legal and Vendor Management a complete, vetted baseline right from day one. As Tina notes, "Consolidocs does not replace any of those systems." Instead, it empowers every team to collaborate seamlessly using the exact same complete dataset.
See your full licence first
Before your team launches into another drawn-out scavenger hunt for missing paperwork, transform how you manage your contracts. Schedule a call with Tina and bring along a sample supplier licence folder to see the difference firsthand. Book a discovery call now.
