Picture this: Your firm's Accounting Book of Record (ABOR) sits in the back office, dutifully recording every transaction, valuation, and position. It's accurate. It's audited. It's essential. But here's the uncomfortable truth: it's probably costing you more than it should and delivering far less value than it could.
For decades, financial institutions have treated their books of record as static ledgers—compliance artifacts that exist to satisfy regulators and auditors. Meanwhile, business teams across the front office, risk, and client reporting build their own data pipelines, extract their own versions of the truth, and reconcile the same information over and over again. The result? Spiraling costs, inconsistent definitions, and missed opportunities to turn accounting data into a strategic asset.
The shift is already happening. Forward-thinking firms in asset management, wealth management, and custody accounting are reimagining the ABOR not as a back-office necessity, but as a suite of governed, reusable data products in financial services. This isn't just a technology upgrade—it's a fundamental rethinking of how financial data is created, shared, and consumed across the enterprise.
The Hidden Cost of the Status Quo
Let's start with a familiar scenario. A new regulatory requirement lands on your desk. Perhaps it's a cross-border reporting mandate, or a client demands enhanced transparency into their portfolio performance. What happens next?
In most organisations, this triggers a new project. Data engineers extract raw accounting data from the ABOR. Business analysts define new calculations. Developers build bespoke pipelines. Weeks or months later, you have a solution—but it's siloed, undocumented, and difficult to maintain. When the next request arrives, the cycle repeats.
This "project-by-project" model creates three persistent problems:
Duplication. Multiple teams extract and transform the same underlying data, each with slightly different logic and definitions. One team's NAV calculation doesn't match another's, and nobody can quite explain why.
Fragility. When source systems change, every downstream pipeline breaks. Fixing them requires tribal knowledge and manual intervention, creating operational risk and extending time-to-resolution.
Opportunity cost. Your data engineering talent spends time rebuilding the same foundational datasets instead of innovating on analytics, client experiences, or new products.
The problem isn't the data itself—it's how we've organised around it.
Introducing the Data Product Mindset
What if, instead of treating the ABOR as a monolithic system, we treated it as a portfolio of data products—modular, governed, and designed for reuse?
A data product is more than a database or a data pipeline. It's a complete, self-contained capability that includes the data itself, clear documentation, quality guarantees, and defined service levels. It has an owner accountable for its quality and evolution. It's discoverable through a catalogue or marketplace. And crucially, it's designed with consumers in mind.
When applied to ABOR data modernisation, this approach transforms accounting from a cost center into a strategic platform. Here's how it works in practice.
Meeting Consumer Needs at Scale
At Keyrus, we've helped financial institutions design their books of record as layered data products, each serving a distinct purpose:
1. Source-Aligned Products: The Golden Copy
These are governed, reconciled versions of your core accounting data—positions, transactions, cash movements, and valuations. They're clean, auditable, and traceable back to source systems with full lineage. For asset servicers and custodians, source-aligned products eliminate the downstream chaos caused by inconsistent extracts.
2. Aggregated Products: Business Metrics at Scale
The next layer assembles reusable business metrics: P&L by strategy, Net Asset Value (NAV) by fund, and exposures by asset class. These aggregated products embed institutional knowledge—your firm's specific conventions for valuation hierarchies, corporate action handling, and fee calculations.
3. Consumer-Aligned Products: Tailored for Purpose
At the top of the stack, consumer-aligned products package data for specific audiences: regulatory filings, client portals, risk reporting, and performance attribution. Each product has a stable schema, documented SLAs, and a clear product owner accountable for meeting consumer needs.
The benefits are tangible: faster onboarding, lower total cost of ownership, and new revenue opportunities from data-as-a-service offerings.
Governance and Quality: Built In, Not Bolted On
One of the most powerful aspects of the data product approach is that FSI data governance and automation become embedded in the design—not afterthoughts.
Each data product has a defined owner, data steward, and custodian. They're responsible for quality, lineage, compliance, and evolution throughout the product's lifecycle. For the ABOR, this means reconciled, auditable data with transparent lineage back to source systems and automated validation at every step.
Cloud-native ABOR platforms now support automated reconciliation between accounting and investment books of record, catching discrepancies in near real-time rather than days or weeks later. Metadata-rich documentation makes it easy for finance, risk, and client reporting teams to understand exactly what they're consuming—no more guesswork about calculation logic or data freshness.
The payoff? Downstream consumers no longer need to perform repeated quality checks or build redundant validation layers. They can confidently select the right ABOR product from a governed catalogue, accelerating close and attest cycles while reducing manual remediation work.
Breaking Down Silos: Producers and Consumers in Harmony
In traditional operating models, data producers (your accounting teams) and consumers (risk, finance, front office) work in silos. Requests move through ticketing systems with long turnaround times. Priorities misalign. Frustration mounts.
A data product model replaces this with cross-functional product teams accountable for adoption, service levels, and measurable business outcomes. Consumers access ABOR products through a data marketplace or catalogue, where they can review definitions, quality scores, lineage, and request enhancements through structured product backlogs.
This clear interface between producers and consumers reduces ambiguity, improves transparency, and enables faster time-to-value. Shared components—pricing hierarchies, corporate action logic, reference data—are reused across products, further improving productivity and consistency.
One wealth management firm we worked with reduced its client reporting turnaround time by 40% simply by eliminating duplicate data extraction and reconciliation work. The same governed ABOR products now serve portfolio managers, client relationship teams, and regulatory reporting—each with tailored views but a common foundation.
Interoperability: The Enterprise Multiplier
The real magic happens when ABOR data products interoperate seamlessly with other enterprise data domains—client master, security master, market data, and reference data.
When these products align on shared identifiers, schemas, and APIs, firms can rapidly build composite data products that deliver exponential value:
Client 360 views combining client demographics, holdings, fee schedules, and interactions
Risk and exposure packs merging ABOR positions with security master attributes and real-time market data
Regulatory data pipelines that reduce manual reconciliation and accelerate cross-border reporting
By embracing open standards and interoperable design, financial institutions reduce bespoke integration costs, improve data accuracy, and create faster pathways to compliance and innovation. The same principles driving transformation in open banking and payments can revolutionise investment operations and custody accounting.
Unifying IBOR and ABOR: One Truth, One Timeline
A persistent challenge in investment operations has been keeping the Investment Book of Record (IBOR) and Accounting Book of Record (ABOR) synchronised. Discrepancies between front-office and back-office views of positions and cash create operational risk, extend close processes, and erode trust.
Modern platforms now enable near-real-time reconciliation between IBOR and ABOR, ensuring timelier and more accurate views of portfolios across the enterprise. This unified approach reduces exceptions, accelerates period-end close, and scales efficiently as new asset classes, vehicles, and trading volumes enter the picture. For firms managing complex, multi-asset portfolios, this synchronisation isn't just convenient—it's essential for maintaining control and confidence in a fast-moving market environment.
The Strategic Advantage: From Cost Center to Value Engine
Reimagining the ABOR as a portfolio of governed data products gives financial institutions a powerful foundation for transformation. It improves data quality, enhances trust, and reduces operational friction—while enabling agility for new regulations, clients, and growth opportunities. Consider the compounding benefits:
Faster time-to-market for new client offerings and regulatory responses
Lower total cost of ownership through reuse and reduced duplication
Improved data quality with governance and validation embedded by design
New revenue streams from data-as-a-service and enhanced client reporting capabilities
Better decision-making when trusted, timely data flows freely across business functions
In a sector where accurate, timely data underpins every decision—from trading and risk management to client communication and regulatory compliance—this product mindset doesn't just modernise accounting. It creates a scalable, strategic advantage that compounds over time.
How Keyrus Can Help
At Keyrus, we've guided financial institutions through every stage of the data product journey—from strategy and design to implementation and operationalisation. Our approach combines deep financial services expertise with proven capabilities in cloud data platforms, governance frameworks, and operating model transformation.
We help you identify high-value opportunities, establish product ownership and governance structures, design scalable data architectures, and build the technical capabilities to bring data products to life. Whether you're modernising legacy ABOR systems, building a cloud data marketplace for financial institutions, or implementing FSI data governance and automation, we work alongside your teams to deliver tangible outcomes.
Our Data Marketplace offering (K. Market) provides a complete solution for financial institutions looking to unlock the value of their data assets. We help you build and operate a governed, self-service data marketplace where business users can discover, access, and consume trusted data products—from ABOR and IBOR to client master, security master, and market data.
The Bottom Line
Your Accounting Book of Record isn't just a ledger. It's a launchpad—if you treat it as one.
By adopting a data product approach to ABOR data modernisation, financial institutions can move beyond static accounting and unlock dynamic, reusable, governed data capabilities that serve the entire enterprise. The technology exists. The business case is proven. The question is: will you lead the transformation, or follow it?
Ready to explore how data products can transform your books of record? Contact Keyrus UK to start the conversation.
About the Author
Suyash Singh is a Data Product Strategy Expert and Principal Consultant at Keyrus UK, where he helps financial institutions transform their data foundations into strategic assets. With deep expertise in asset management, wealth management, and custody accounting, Suyash advises firms on data modernisation, governance, and product-led operating models.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is a data product, and how does it differ from a traditional database or data pipeline?
A data product is a complete package: the data itself plus documentation, quality guarantees, clear ownership, and SLAs—all discoverable through a catalogue. Unlike a database (which just stores data) or pipeline (which moves data), it's designed as a reusable service with accountability built in.
Do we need to replace our existing ABOR system to adopt a data product approach?
No. Most organisations start by wrapping existing systems with governance layers, metadata catalogues, and APIs. This delivers immediate value while you plan longer-term modernisation. Cloud-native platforms ultimately provide more agility, but you can begin without wholesale replacement.
How long does it typically take to see tangible benefits from treating ABOR as data products?
Many firms see early wins within 3-6 months by targeting specific pain points like duplicated NAV calculations. Comprehensive benefits—faster regulatory responses, new revenue streams—typically emerge over 12-18 months as adoption scales.
What are the biggest organisational barriers to adopting this approach?
Cultural challenges outweigh technical ones: unclear data ownership, siloed teams reluctant to share, and lack of executive buy-in. Success requires cross-functional product teams, data stewardship roles, and leadership commitment to treating data as a strategic asset.
How does this approach help with regulatory compliance and audit requirements?
Embedded governance and automated validation reduce errors. Transparent lineage shows auditors exactly how data flows from source to report. Consistent use of governed products across filings eliminates reconciliation headaches. Clients have cut audit preparation time by 30-50%.
Can smaller financial institutions benefit from this approach, or is it only for large enterprises?
Absolutely. Smaller institutions often benefit more due to less legacy complexity. Cloud platforms have democratised governance and catalogue capabilities. Start by productising a few core ABOR datasets to immediately reduce duplication and improve quality.
How does this relate to other data initiatives like data mesh or data fabric?
Data products are the building blocks of data mesh (domain-oriented, product thinking, federated governance). Data fabric provides the enabling infrastructure—APIs, catalogues, orchestration. Together: data products define what you build, data mesh defines how you organise and data fabric provides the technology layer.