Democratisation of data begins with the ability for all users across the enterprise to find the data they need to deploy in their use case. LSEG has incorporated a semantic data layer – which translates data lingo into business. Data scientists, traders, analysts and others can use business language to uncover the data they need. The semantic data layer also supports the use cases themselves, enabling firms to deliver on both defensive and offensive data strategies.
- LSEG’s Data Trust Programme incorporates a standard-based semantic data layer to power key capabilities within our cloud-based data distribution platform, and to support the strategic use of LSEG data by firms.
- A semantic data layer must be a core component of both defensive and offensive data strategies, delivering essential data use cases while driving innovation.
- LSEG Data Discovery and Data Discovery Feed provide users with the ability to find the best data for their use case. Powered by a semantic data layer, Data Discovery drives value by democratising data across the enterprise.
Finding the perfect data set can be one of the most challenging aspects of bringing a specific use case to life. To make locating the right data faster and simpler – for data scientists and individuals in the business alike – LSEG has incorporated a best practice, open standards-based, semantic data layer into its new Data Discovery products.
A semantic data layer is a specialised form of metadata that sits between the data and business users. Semantic data captures the definitions that businesses run on and the data relationships that provide context, while providing the governance that keeps data consistent. It translates technical data – including metadata – into business language that is stable across the enterprise.
This consistent translation enables the democratisation of data, so that everyone can find the data they need in seconds, rather than hours or days. The semantic data layer also helps financial services firms drive more value from their LSEG financial data by making automation, analytics, business intelligence (BI) and artificial intelligence (AI) use cases easier to implement.
In the age of AI, data only creates value when it can be trusted, understood, and found. Data Discovery at LSEG transforms metadata into a strategic asset through connecting context, accelerating insight, and ensuring every decision starts with clarity.
David Thomas
Supporting search with semantics
The semantic data layer is part of LSEG’s Data Trust Programme – a strategic initiative designed to ensure the highest quality, integrity, and security of the more than 60k terabytes of data we have stored. This data is deployed by financial services firms across the globe into a growing range of use cases. It is being shared via the cloud, supported by our open, LLM-agnostic, and infrastructure-oriented partnership approach, which enables workflows through MCP servers and AI-ready APIs.
The semantic layer – built using open data standards – creates a single, centralised data model for the business language associated with the data, using elements such as:
- Business elements – Business names, descriptions and data types
- Business glossaries – A common vocabulary across the enterprise that defines concepts related to the data
- Business lineage – This connects the data together and creates transparency around how data is created and used.
By developing a semantic layer that lives centrally, within the overall data model, the business language is the same across LSEG’s data sets, eliminating potential inconsistencies in understanding and outputs – making it ideal for today’s innovative use cases.
As a strategic part of LSEG’s Data Trust Programme, the semantic data layer creates value for firms by enabling the democratization of data through the self-service discovery of datasets. It also significantly enriches the data for deployment in processes, business intelligence analytics, and AI – it is designed to support both defensive and offensive data strategies within financial services firms, enabling those firms to drive more value from our data.
Constructing a defensive data strategy
Both defensive and offensive data strategies are needed to create a balanced data ecosystem. Defensive data strategies prioritise managing risk, ensuring compliance, and delivering data security. For a highly regulated industry such as financial services, having a robust defensive data strategy in place is essential. To help firms deliver this, LSEG’s semantic data layer is designed to support:
- Regulatory reporting – By building trusted data pipelines, automating lineage tracking and creating end-to-end data traceability, we help firms meet data compliance and audit requirements.
- Data risk, health and resiliency – Robust data governance – including the sematic data layer – strengthens data integrity. We’ve also operationalised risk detection and built in strong resilience.
- Data platform modernization – By improving the overall data architecture – including adding in the semantic layer – we’re able to empower users through self-service access to data through Data Discovery.
The defensive data strategy supplies the essential requirements that financial services firms have today when using LSEG data in use cases across the front, middle and back offices, including Data Discovery.
Innovating with offensive data strategies
Offensive data strategies focus on deploying data to drive growth, innovation, and competitive advantage. LSEG’s use of open data standards to create its semantic data layer means that firms can align LSEG financial data with their own metadata. Key themes that drive our approach include:
- Semantic data as a strategic asset – The semantic data layer supports complex use cases, such as BI-driven reports and AI projects anchored in machine-readable feeds.
- Customer centricity – Applying the semantic layer within Data Discovery creates a connected experience for users, from locating the right data set and testing it, to deploying it.
- AI-driven growth – The semantic data layer enables firms to find and use LSEG data faster than ever before. It can help scale automation and ensure AI is being used ethically.
Every use case begins with finding the right data to power it. LSEG Data Discovery was built to turbocharge data research, with the semantic data layer helping users across the business to navigate quickly and easily through the depth and breadth of data we offer.
Exploring with Data Discovery
LSEG’s open-standard semantic data layer powers Data Discovery – a seamless, end-to-end data exploration experience that makes it simple to find, learn about and sample our data.
Data Discovery provides an intuitive search experience that enables users to locate data sets with business language queries. Each data set profile – in an attractive UI – contains the important information users need to understand what the data set is composed of, how it can be used, the ways in which it can be accessed, and how they can purchase it. Of course, the metadata associated with the dataset is detailed. LSEG customers with MyAccount access can explore Data Discovery today.
Now, financial firms can embed this experience directly into their own ecosystem with LSEG Data Discovery Feed. This feed comes complete with data set metadata and semantic data. By building LSEG Data Discovery Feed directly into their own proprietary technology, firms can tailor the data research experience to their firm’s specific needs. To learn more about LSEG Data Discovery Feed.
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