Industry and Standards Bodies

The table below provides background on the various industry collaborations in which FIX Trading Community™ is involved. A description of the specific association is included along with a brief summary of FIX Trading Community’s involvement.

If you are interested in learning more details about any of the above collaborations,  please contact the organisation’s Program Office.

Industry Association Background FIX Trading Community Involvement
Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA) ASIFMA is an independent, regional trade association with over 100 member firms comprising a diverse range of leading financial institutions from both the buy and sell side, including banks, asset managers, law firms and market infrastructure service providers. ASIFMA advocates stable, innovative and competitive Asian capital markets that are necessary to support the region’s economic growth. ASIFMA advocates solutions and effects change around key issues through the collective strength and clarity of one industry voice. The FIX Trading Community’s Asia Pacific Exchanges and Regulatory Committee and ASIFMA, with many firms as common members, have constructively helped industry liaison  in the context of  supporting standards, identifying industry best practices, and robust industry responses to regulatory or market structure consultations in the Asia region.
 

Asia Trader Forum (ATF)

Asia Trader Forum (ATF) is a buyside industry group that aims to support the development of fair and efficient markets throughout the Asia-Pacific region, by serving as a medium for buy-side traders in the Asia-Pacific region to discuss issues of common concern and express their views to regulators, exchanges and market participants with a common voice. ATF and FIX Trading Community have many members in common, and this helps enables efficient liaison across the institutional trading industry in Asia. Specifically, where industry coordination on regulatory or market structure consultations are required, ATF and FIX work closely to ensure full representation of industry views. Also, in the arena of industry education, ATF provides updates at FIX’s Asian briefings and conferences to share their concerns and priorities.
Association of Financial Markets
in Europe (AFME)
AFME is the voice of Europe’s wholesale financial markets. It represents the leading global and European banks and other significant capital market players. They focus on a wide range of market, business and prudential issues and offer a pan-European perspective, bringing to bear deep policy and technical expertise and constructive influence with European and global policymakers. In Nov 2016, AFME and the FIX Trading Community agreed to partner and combine their efforts to review the requirements for Order Data and Record Keeping as part of their respective MiFID work. AFME’s membership is closely aligned to FIX’s membership and in the interest of efficiency and to avoid duplication of effort, it was decided to form a joint industry working group.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) ASIC is Australia’s markets and financial services regulator, ensuring that Australia’s financial markets are fair and transparent. ASIC is required to maintain and improve the performance of the financial system, enforce financial services rules and receive and process financial information to achieve the regulatory reporting requirements it sets. ASIC is an active FIX member and takes part in FIX committee meetings, as well as informal briefings and industry liaison, to help ensure robust cross-industry engagement in Australian regulatory/markets initiatives and development.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) The CFTC’s mission is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, abusive practices and systemic risk related to derivatives that are subject to the Commodity Exchange Act, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound markets. FIX Trading Community was involved in the CFTC’s High Frequency Subcommittee (HFT) under the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to develop recommendations regarding the definition of HFT in the context of the larger universe of automated trading.
European Securities Markets and Markets Authority (ESMA) ESMA is an independent EU Authority that contributes to safeguarding the stability of the European Union’s financial system by enhancing the protection of investors and promoting stable and orderly financial markets. FIX is heavily involved with MiFID II legislation and has on-going dialogue with ESMA to ensure our work is being considered by the authorities.
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) FCA aims to make sure that financial markets work well so that consumers get a fair deal.
This means ensuring that the financial industry is run with integrity,firms provide consumers with appropriate products and services and consumers can trust that firms have their best interests at heart.
FIX is part of the Joint Trade Association Group (JTAG) and meets regularly with the FCA to discuss the current regulatory landscape and push for the use of standards to address issues.
Financial Information Forum (FIF) FIF addresses the implementation issues that impact the securities industry across the order life cycle. There are still discussions underway around the requirements needed for reporting for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) but there is a push for FIX to be the syntax of choice for CAT reporting.
Futures Industry Association (FIA) FIA is the leading trade organisation for the futures, options and OTC cleared derivatives markets. FIX Trading Community and FIA have worked together to enhance FIX to support a number of Dodd-Frank reporting requirements. Additionally, there has been a joint collaboration to support pre-trade credit limit checks.
Global Digital Asset & Cryptocurrency Association (Global DCA) Global DCA is a global self-regulatory association for the digital asset & cryptocurrency industry. The organization collaborates with stakeholders around the world, industry leaders and policymakers to support the growth of the global digital economy. Global DCA mission is to promote and strengthen the digital asset and cryptocurrency industry, protect the public interest, and maximize legitimate economic opportunity for all participants in the global digital economy. FIX and Global DCA will work together to continually promote the use of standards for digital assets. Additionally, Global DCA will work with the FIX Digital Asset working group to establish and promote the use of best practices for the entire electronic trading lifecycle of digital assets.
Global Digital Finance Global Digital Finance (GDF) is a not-for-profit members body with a mission to drive global standards and best practices for crypto and digital asset market participants, including some of the most influential digital currency and token companies, academics and professional services who support the industry. GDF conducts policymaker, regulator and industry outreach to build a shared understanding of the risks and opportunities presented by tokens and cryptoassets and has developed a global Code of Conduct for the cryptoassets market and its participants. The FIX Trading Community would like to compliment the efforts and mission of the GDF and work together strategically to further promote the standardization for trading digital assets. An MOU has been agreed which outlines the steps and conditions that Global Digital Finance, and FIX Trading Community agree are necessary to achieve their mutual goals.
Hong Kong Investment Funds Association (HKIFA) The Hong Kong Investment Funds Association (“HKIFA”) represents the fund management industry of Hong Kong to foster the development of the fund management industry in Hong Kong and enhance the professional standards, to help maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness as the major fund management centre in Asia. As a member of the FIX Trading Community, the HKIFA engages with industry participants to help ensure proper representation of industry views in industry consultations and industry educational initiatives, including the FIX Asia Trading Summit.
International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication (ISITC) ISITC brings together broker/dealers, custodians, investment managers, vendors/utilities and other industry professionals to develop proposed standards that are designed to enhance efficiencies in trade processing and related communications. Local matching is now a core processing function included in many ISITC working groups and a number of our buy-side members have given input to their initiative.
International Standards Organisation (ISO) ISO 20022 is the international standard that defines the business modeling approach for the development of financial message standards.

Click here to view the history of collaboration between the FIX Trading Community and ISO.

In addition to being a member of the Registration Management Group (RMG), FIX Trading Community is involved in ISO 20022 message model development for post-trade processing, collateral management, CCP post-trade clearing and Standing Settlement Instructions (SSI).

 

International Token Standardization Association (ITSA) ITSA aims at promoting the development and implementation of market standards for the identification, classification and analysis of blockchain- and DLT-based cryptographic tokens. In order to increase transparency and safety on global token markets, ITSA currently develops and implements the following three projects:

  • Identification: International Token Identification Number (ITIN)
  • Classification: International Token Classification (ITC)
  • Analysis: International Token Database (TOKENBASE)
The FIX Trading Community would like to compliment the efforts and mission of the ITSA and work together strategically to further promote the standardization for trading digital assets. An MOU has been agreed which outlines the steps and conditions that International Token Strandardization Association, and FIX Trading Community agree are necessary to achieve their mutual goals.

 

InterWork Alliance (IWA) InterWork Alliance is a member-led, non for profit industry organization that aims to provide a neutral platform for firms to trade token based, multi-party digital interchanges of value. Focused on developing a standard for defining
digital tokens and creating solutions for token
definitions by utilizing standards to promote the interoperability of products.
The FIX Trading Community shares many common goals with IWA, open standards, interoperability, addressing market and regulatory needs and will work closely with the organization to align standards and promote interoperability.

 

 

Investment Association (IA)

The Investment Association is the trade body that represents UK investment managers.  Their 200 members collectively manage over 5.7 trillion GBP on behalf of clients in the UK and around the world.  The three main aims for the IA for their members are: Promoting our members, supporting our members and shaping investments. The original FIX TCA WG document, released in Jan 2014, has provided a baseline of knowledge to promote a general understanding of TCA components.  It has presented facts describing the computational rudiments, industry-specific perspectives, and in some cases, the pros and cons of using various benchmarks.  Investment Association’s TCA Working Group has provided further content regarding standardization of TCA and has agreed to partner with us to refine ongoing TCA requirements across asset classes.
Object Management Group-Enterprise Data Management Council (OMG-EDM Council) The EDM Council is a financial industry business forum founded to elevate the practice of data management. The semantics committee holds meetings on model development and FIX Trading Community is involved to promote FIX’s domain knowledge.
Private Sector Preparatory Group (PSPG) The PSPG is a industry-member led committee reporting to the Financial Stability Board (FSB) which has subcommittees that are studying and recommending design and implementation components for the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). FIX has been enhanced to support the LEI requirements as well as the counterparty relationships and hierarchies information which will accompany it. This functionality strongly supports the federated approach preferred by the FSB and maintains the benefits associated with an open standards approach.
Standards Coordination Group (SCG) The SCG is a consortium of members from FIX Trading Community, ISITC, SWIFT, FpML and XBRL who partner to leverage ISO 20022 for standards modeling. The purpose of the group has been to define an approach that leverages multiple standards into a broader message model framework, without reinventing and creating redundant messages. Through it’s involvement, FIX Trading Community continues to provide industry leadership and guide strategy of the group that is aligned to FIX Trading Community’s interests.  Please see a link to the Investment Roadmap in the first column which the group created to show coverage for different industry standards across the trading lifecycle and distinct products.
X9D ASC X9, Inc. is approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO TC68 – the subcommittee on Financial Service. X9D is the Securities subcommittee of X9 and develops standards for electronic institutional trade communication. Actively provide leadership, strategy and input to align with FIX Trading Community’s interests.