FIX Trading Community announces new recommended guidelines for the use of FIX in multi asset classes for post-trade

Non-profit electronic trading and execution standards organization FIX Trading Community has today announced the release of new guidelines for the use of FIX in post-trade processing for multi asset classes and a common post-trade framework.

The FIX Global Post-Trade Working Group has been focusing its efforts on how best to resolve the inefficiencies in post-trade workflow for a number of years. Following on from its work with cash equities, the working group assessed a number of different asset classes and how variations in workflow can create issues. Frequent trade breaks and slow resolution times can have a commercial impact as well as have adverse effects on client relationships.

By publishing a standardised and detailed set of guidelines for futures, equity swaps and FX equity options, FIX is addressing these issues by providing a common workflow with minimal differences across asset classes, thereby allowing connection to one or more third parties and/or intermediaries with the same protocol. With these guidelines, market participants will be able to reduce risk and have the ability to leverage off their current FIX infrastructure in place for trading and, by doing so, minimise implementation time and costs.

Dave Tolman, Principal Services Analyst, Itiviti, Co-chair Global Post Trade Working Group commented, “The focus of the Global Post-Trade Working Group is to improve buy-side post-trade processing. With the release of these guidelines and the use of FIX, they will benefit from lower implementation and maintenance costs, improved ease of use, greater flexibility and, ultimately, lower risk.”

Scott Atwell, Manager FIX Trading and Connectivity, American Century Investments noted, “As a result of the industry collaboration via the FIX Global Post-Trade Working Group, American Century Investments is receiving FIX 4.4 Confirms for approximately 90% of all of our non-US equity confirmations, and the benefits include efficiency gains, improved straight-through processing, and quicker identification of issues, all of which provide significant risk reduction and cost savings. It is great to see the group’s efforts extending those benefits and standardisation to additional asset classes.”