Home / Directory / Index and benchmark

Index and benchmark: a buyer's guide

What we list in this category, how the field splits between long-established products and newer ones, and the questions worth pressing on before you commit.

Every entry below was recorded from a page we opened, and each carries the source we read. Where we could not establish something it is left blank rather than guessed. Read how this site works if you want the detail.

Long-established products

Recorded as established: in production for many years, usually with a deep reference base and broad coverage. Those are real advantages, and so is the fact that a fifteen-year horizon is easier to argue for a supplier that has already lasted one.

• BarraOne — Multi-asset factor risk and return attribution across public and private assets, built on the Barra models. source
• FT Wilshire Index Series — US and global equity benchmarks including the FT Wilshire 5000, style, factor, real estate, infrastructure and digital asset indexes, with a W+ Analytics tool for index customization and attribution. source
• FTSE Russell Indices — Equity, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, digital asset and benchmark-rate index families used as fund benchmarks worldwide. source
• ICE Consolidated Feed — Streaming low-latency consolidated data feed delivered over the ICE Global Network, alongside ICE Consolidated History for tick archives and Continuous Evaluated Pricing. source
• ICE Index Solutions — Fixed income focused index family that its own page says benchmarks about $2.0 trillion of assets, sold alongside custom index and benchmark-transition services. source
• Indxx Index Calculation & Administration — Independent index provider offering custom indexing, real-time or end-of-day calculation, corporate actions handling and full benchmark administration across 500-plus indices; offices in the US, UK, India, Israel and South Korea. source
• MSCI ESG Ratings — Scores companies on exposure to industry-specific environmental, social and governance risks, and feeds most of the ESG indices institutions benchmark against. source
• MSCI Indexes — Global equity and multi-asset benchmarks plus client-designed custom indexes; MSCI bought Foxberry (London, founded 2014, foxf9 platform) in February 2024 and Compass Financial Technologies, whose site now says it is part of MSCI. source

Newer products

Recorded as modern or emerging. Newer suppliers often offer capability and pricing the incumbents do not, and they carry risks the incumbents do not: fewer references at your size, less operating history, and concentration if they are small. Both belong in the same comparison, on the same fields.

• MerQube — Cloud-native index design and calculation platform for rules-based and structured-product indices; raised a $22m Series B in July 2023 led by Intel Capital with Citi, J.P. Morgan, UBS, Laurion Capital and Allianz Life Ventures participating. source
• VettaFi Index Services — Index design, licensing, calculation and administration assembled from Alerian, S-Network Global Indexes, ETF Trends and ETF Database; now owned by TMX Group, which added the Credit Suisse Bond Indices in 2025 and completed the purchase of RAFI Indices from Research Affiliates in August 2026. source

What to ask

These come from the same question bank our request-for-proposal process uses, so a guide and an RFP never drift apart. The four sections below carry the most weight in that bank.

Functional fit

Whether the system does the job for YOUR instruments, markets and volumes — not for the demonstration portfolio. The questions separate what runs in production today from what is on the roadmap, because that distinction disappears in a sales meeting and reappears during implementation. It also asks what still has to be typed in by hand, which every system has and few volunteer.

• Which asset classes does the product support in production today?
• Is there a full audit trail of who changed what and when, and can it be exported?
• Does the system enforce segregation of duties between front and back office?
• Is maker-checker approval supported on material actions, and is it configurable by action type?
• Can a valuation be sourced and approved independently of the people who trade?

Security and resilience

Whether the vendor's security is independently attested or merely asserted. The questions ask for certifications you can read, penetration tests you can see the summary of, and recovery objectives that are written down. Incident history is asked directly, because a vendor that has handled a breach well is often a safer choice than one that has never been tested.

• Which independent attestations do you hold currently?
• Will you provide the most recent report under a non-disclosure agreement?
• Is data encrypted in transit and at rest?
• Is single sign-on supported, and is multi-factor authentication enforced?
• Can your own staff see our data, and is that access logged and reviewable by us?

Commercial terms

Total cost across the whole term, and what happens if you leave. Year one is asked separately from years two to five because year one hides where the money goes. The section asks explicitly what is NOT included, since the gap between the quote and the invoice lives there, and it asks about exit terms while you still have the leverage to negotiate them.

• How is the product priced?
• What is the total first-year cost for our stated requirement, including implementation?
• What is the total annual cost in years two through five?
• What is NOT included in that figure?
• Is there a contractual cap on annual price increases?

Artificial intelligence

If a model touches your data, on what terms. This section exists because the answers differ enormously between vendors and are rarely offered unprompted. It asks whether your data trains models serving other clients, whether you can opt out and keep full function, whether a human reviews output before it affects a book or a client report, and who is liable when a model is wrong. Skip it only if you genuinely do not care.

• Does the product use machine learning or generative AI anywhere in its normal operation?
• Is client data ever used to train models that serve other clients?
• Can we opt out of AI features entirely and keep full product function?
• Does our data leave your infrastructure to reach those providers?
• Is a human review step required before an AI output affects a book, a trade or a client report?

See all 32 products in Index and benchmark · Glossary