TNS Arms Financial Firms to Slash Runaway Market Data Costs

RESTON, VA – February 17, 2026 – Transaction Network Services (TNS) today unveiled a new weapon for financial firms in the battle against spiraling operational expenses, launching an interactive customer portal for its Data Usage Optimizer (DUO). The new self-service interface is designed to give buy-side and sell-side institutions direct control over what has become one of their largest and most unmanageable costs: market data.

Building on the initial DUO software released in late 2024, the portal empowers firms to directly analyze their vast web of market data subscriptions, pinpoint underutilized or entirely unused services, and take immediate action to eliminate unnecessary spending. The move addresses a critical pain point in an industry where global spending on financial market data and news soared to a record $44.3 billion in 2024 and continues to climb.

"Last year we introduced DUO to solve a critical industry problem. Today, we're putting the power to control market data costs directly into our customers' hands," said Tom Lazenga, General Manager of TNS Financial Markets. "The DUO portal empowers data managers and desk heads to instantly identify and act on potential savings."

Confronting a Multi-Billion-Dollar Problem

For decades, market data has been the lifeblood of trading floors, risk departments, and investment analysis. Yet, its procurement and management have created a multi-billion-dollar headache for financial institutions. Industry reports consistently rank market data as one of the largest non-compensation expenses, with some firms seeing their data budgets swell by as much as 50% in recent years.

A 2025 study by Deloitte found that a third of banks spend over €5 million annually on market data, with potential savings of up to 20% being left on the table. The complexity stems from multiple factors. Firms often source similar data from different vendors due to fragmented, department-level purchasing, leading to widespread redundancy. Complex vendor contracts, frequent price hikes, and intricate, volume-based billing models make invoices nearly impossible to reconcile with actual usage without dedicated tools.

This lack of transparency means expensive data feeds and terminals can remain active long after the projects or personnel that required them are gone. The challenge is compounded by inefficient internal data architectures and a lack of centralized oversight, preventing firms from gaining a single, coherent view of their data consumption footprint. Until now, many have relied on unwieldy spreadsheets or manual processes, which are ill-equipped to handle the scale of the problem.

Putting Control in the Customer's Hands

The TNS DUO portal aims to replace this complexity with clarity. The system is engineered to ingest complex, raw data files from vendor entitlement systems and transform them into an actionable, intuitive dashboard. This allows financial firms to move beyond guesswork and make data-driven decisions about their subscriptions.

Key features of the new portal underscore its focus on user empowerment:

• Direct Customer Access: Firms can now independently upload their vendor entitlement files and generate detailed savings reports on their own schedule, dramatically accelerating the optimization cycle.
• Advanced Analytics: A sophisticated data grid allows managers to filter and sort information by individual user, desk, geographic location, or specific data feed. This granularity is crucial for identifying precisely where waste is occurring.
• Global Management: The platform provides a centralized, holistic view for managing and analyzing data costs across a firm’s entire portfolio of global offices through a single interface.
• Customizable Cost Modeling: Users can input their specific contract pricing, including bulk discounts and regional fee variations, to build a highly accurate and realistic picture of potential savings.

The impact of such visibility can be substantial. In one instance prior to the portal's launch, TNS utilized its DUO software with a global bank and identified $60,000 in recurring monthly savings simply by highlighting subscribed data feeds that were going completely unused.

A Strategic Move Beyond Connectivity

The launch of the DUO portal marks a significant strategic expansion for TNS. Founded in 1990, the company built its reputation as a leading provider of mission-critical infrastructure, offering ultra-low latency connectivity and managed services to more than 750 financial market participants globally. With DUO, TNS is moving further up the value chain, leveraging its deep expertise in market data infrastructure to solve a pressing business problem for its clients.

This positions the Reston-based provider in a competitive landscape that includes specialized market data management firms like TRG Screen and consulting services from major advisory firms. However, TNS is betting that its DUO portal's emphasis on a direct, self-service model will be a key differentiator. By providing the tools for clients to conduct analysis themselves, it reduces reliance on third-party consultants and lengthy manual audits, offering a path to quicker ROI.

The product roadmap further signals the company's ambition. According to Lazenga, the portal lays the foundation for future enhancements, including automated feed provisioning and support for a wider array of data providers. This vision points toward a future where the entire lifecycle of market data management—from procurement and cost control to provisioning and compliance—is streamlined through a single, integrated platform.

As financial institutions navigate an increasingly complex and costly data landscape, the move towards such integrated, user-driven optimization platforms represents a critical step in transforming a sprawling operational burden into a strategically managed asset.