Unbundling of research is one of the key issues for financial institutions to manage ahead of implementation in 2018.

Currently the focus of financial institutions is compliance. However, we focus on the more substantive implications of research unbundling as new data assets emerge which have the potential to objectify the entire investment process.

We explore the wider impact of research unbundling on the buy side and sell side business models as a plethora of new data and explicit costs emerge.

The notion of Alt-Data is one which has gripped the capital markets community and will continue to do so as the potential for alpha-generation and competitive advantages are explored.

However, MiFID II is going to trigger a wave of new data from the activities inside financial institutions which will impact organizational structure, team construction, and internal research generation — indeed, every aspect of the process geared towards generating alpha.