XML-based standards and Regulatory Agencies
The Financial Information eXchange (FIX)
protocol is a messaging standard developed specifically for the real-time
electronic exchange of securities transactions. FIX is a public-domain
specification owned and maintained by FIX Protocol, Ltd. The mission of the
organization:
To improve the global
trading process by defining, managing, and promoting an open protocol for
real-time, electronic communication between industry participants, while
complementing industry standards.
The FIX protocol
specification is maintained by the FIX Technical Committee, which receives
its direction from the international Steering Committees, the Global
Steering Committee, and the various Working Groups comprised of industry
participants such as fund managers, brokers, exchanges, and vendors.
FIXML
FIXML was
devised in as an XML vocabulary based on the FIX protocol. Essentially,
FIXML takes a FIX tag value format and represents it in XML. These FIXML
messages are then embedded within the traditional FIX headers and trailers.
By doing so, it minimizes the impact on existing implementations of FIX,
requiring just an XML parser for an existing FIX engine to communicate.
FIXM DTD can be downloaded from the FIX website.
The FIXML Schema
Working Group has released FIXML 4.4 Schema in August 2003.>
FpML (Financial
products Markup Language) is the industry-standard protocol for complex
financial products. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the
standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. All
categories of privately negotiated derivatives will eventually be
incorporated into the standard. Version 1.0 of FpML covers interest rate
swaps and Forward Rate Agreements (FRAs). Version 2.0 extends the interest
rate product coverage to the most common option products, including caps,
floors, swaptions, and cancelable and extendible swaps. Version 3.0 covers
different asset classes, this version includes the interest rate work of
version 2.0 and additionally covers FX and Equity Derivatives. Version 4.0
expands the coverage of equity derivatives, adds credit derivatives and
defines a messaging framework. Version 4.0 is the first schema-based
version.
Working
Group 10 (WG10) was created in September 2000 by the ISO committee in charge
of international standards for the securities industry to co-ordinate and
standardize the use of XML for securities messages. The official ISO acronym
for WG10 is ISO/TC 68/SC 4/WG 10, where SC4 is the committee in charge of
the securities industry and TC68 the parent committee in charge of the
financial industry. Upon the request of TC68 the mandate of WG10 has been
extended beyond the securities industry and now reads: "To evolve ISO 15022
to permit migration of the securities industry to a standardized use of XML,
guaranteeing interoperability across the industry and with other industry
sectors, particularly but not restricted to the financial industry.
WG10 has defined a standard approach and guidelines to build a business
model, expressed in UML (Unified Modelling Language), of the financial
industry and of the various supporting message models, i.e. business message
scenarios. WG10 has also defined standard rules to derive XML schemas from
the UML message models. A new ISO 15022 Repository will store the UML
business model, the UML message models and the derived XML schemas. SWIFT
Standards, as the ISO 15022 Registration Authority, will maintain the ISO
15022 Repository and make it publicly available for general use, on behalf
of ISO. This is planned to happen in 2004, once the second edition of ISO
15022 will have been approved by ISO.
SWIFT is the industry-owned
cooperative supplying secure, standardized messaging services and interface
software to 7,500 financial institutions in 200 countries. The SWIFT
community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as
their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade.
Over the past ten years SWIFT message prices have dropped more than 70%,
system availability has reached 5x9’s reliability and SWIFT’s new IP
messaging platform, SWIFTNet, has been launched.
SWIFT and ISO 15022 XML
SWIFT and
FPL (FIX Protocol Limited) believe that ISO 15022 XML will provide the glue
between the pre-trade/trade (front office) and post-trade (back office)
domains. The effort leverages the experience and expertise of both
organizations, FIX in the pre-trade/trade domain and SWIFT in the post-trade
domain. Different parts of the trade life cycle are truly coming together to
work through issues hindering effective STP and the move to shortened
settlement cycles.
SWIFTML was
the initial basis for the work of WG10. SWIFT intends to adopt ISO 15022 XML
instead of keeping an XML wrap-around specific to SWIFT.
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) brings the publication,
exchange, and analysis of the complex financial information in corporate
business reports into the dynamic and interactive realm of the internet.
XBRL provides a common platform for critical business reporting processes
and improves the reliability and ease of communicating financial data among
users internal and external to the reporting enterprise.
XBRL is an XML-based, royalty-free, and open standard being developed by a
consortium of over 170 companies and agencies, delivering benefits to
investors, accountants, regulators, executives, business and financial
analysts, and information providers.
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