FIX Protocol announces increased focus on exchanges and other liquidity markets

FIX Protocol (FPL) announced on Wednesday that its exchanges and ECNs working group will be elevated to 'committee level'. This move recognises the work currently underway by the group and the organisation’s commitment to meeting the needs and adoption of the FIX messaging standard by this market sector.
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FIX Protocol (FPL) announced on Wednesday that its exchanges and ECNs working group will be elevated to ‘committee level’. This move recognises the work currently underway by the group and the organisation’s commitment to meeting the needs and adoption of the FIX messaging standard by this market sector. The group will become the FPL Global Exchanges and Markets Committee, an advancement which will grant its leaders a seat on the FPL Global Steering Committee, ensuring that the needs and issues pertinent to this market sector are addressed at a global level, says FPL.

Since the launch of the working group in May 2006, it has witnessed significant growth, demonstrating the importance of FIX to this sector. The group is a member of over 35 exchanges and ECNs globally, with some of its most active participants from the Brazilian Mercantile & Futures Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group), Deutsche Börse Group, International Securities Exchange, OMX and PLUS Markets Group.

The aim of the FPL Global Exchanges and Markets Committee, it says, will be to enable and promote the harmonised usage of FIX by exchanges, matching and reporting utilities and new marketplaces. Significant work has already been conducted by the working group to this effect, for example in publishing the Exchanges and ECNs FIX Recommended Best Practices Guide, notes FPL. The committee will seek to reduce the redundancies that limit the achievement of optimal performance, and remove ambiguities to attain true standardisation for firms in environments where a single marketplace interacts with multiple clients, who in turn interact with multiple marketplaces.

The new committee will continue to be led by BNP Paribas' Kathleen Grey and Deutsche Börse Group's Hanno Klein, as co-chairs, and CME Group's Matt Simpson as vice-chair.

“Exchanges play a critical role in creating efficiencies across the industry, both in terms of cost and technology," states Matt Simpson. "FIX provides a basis from which to achieve these goals, however it is important that exchanges and other marketplaces are utilising the protocol in a consistent manner to ensure the delivery of benefit to all market participants. The work of the FPL Global Exchanges and Markets Committee will prove pivotal to this goal," he adds.

“FIX has reached the point of maturity where it provides good coverage for a wide range of exchange services, especially in the areas of core trading and market data distribution," comments Klein. "Harmonised usage of FIX across exchanges and other marketplaces will be key to realising the benefits of standard access that exchange participants have been asking for," he continues.

“As a result of this global elevation, I hope we can continue capturing and documenting FIX usage by exchanges and other marketplaces on a world-wide basis and continue to encourage greater adoption of FIX across the globe,” adds Kathleen Grey.

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