Reference data is a catch all term used in the finance industry to describe counterparty and security identifiers used when making a trade.
The financial service industry and regulatory agencies have pursued a policy of standardizing the reference data that define and describe such transactions.
[1] At its most basic level, reference data for a simple sale of a stock in exchange for cash on a highly liquid stock exchange that involves a standard label for the underlying security (e.g., its ISIN), the identity of the seller, the buyer, the broker-dealer(s), the price, etc.
The background for this policy is the risk that transactions fail and are reversed because contractual terms were misunderstood or ambiguous.
Efforts to standardize reference data are complicated by a number of factors, including: As a result, work to standardize reference data is broadly considered to be an ongoing effort rather than a series of discrete programs.