FpML Architectural Specification Recommendation

Architectural Specification for Financial Products Markup Language Released as Recommendation by FpML.org

Supports $88 Trillion (Notional) OTC Derivatives Market for e-Commerce Trading

The FpML 1.0 architectural specification containing rules for translating business content into XML has completed its trial recommendation phase and is endorsed as a recommendation by FpML.org, according to Brian Lynn, co-chair of the non-profit consortium's Standards Committee. "It's a major step forward to establish Financial products Markup Language as the e-Commerce standard for OTC trading of derivatives products, a market that exceeded $88 trillion in notional at year-end 1999," Mr. Lynn said.

FpML.org is developing the freely licensed FpML standard to automate the flow of information across the entire derivatives partner network, independent of the underlying software or hardware infrastructure supporting the transactions. The consortium is comprised of leading banks and financial institutions that together account for more than 80% of derivatives trading, along with information and software vendors and systems integrators.

The architectural specification addresses topics such as rules for expressing object-oriented (OO) concepts in XML, rules for referencing a single object from several places within an FpML document, rules for identifying the version of an FpML document and naming conventions. The specification also provides a base for the other FpML specifications by providing a consistent way for these to handle the complexity of structured derivatives products.

Separately, FpML.org has posted a slightly revised trial recommendation for FpML Version 1.0. A trial recommendation is work that has received significant review within the FpML consortium, and is a call to those outside of the consortium for implementation and technical feedback. The revisions include a change allowing easier addition of future products, changes to accommodate evolution in W3C XML standards and others to improve the generality of certain components.

Information on both actions is posted at www.fpml.org/spec.

Organizations actively participating in the FpML standard:

Bank of America
BNP Paribas
Citigroup
Credit Suisse First Boston
Deutsche Bank
Fuji Capital Markets Corporation
Goldman Sachs
International Business Machines
JPMorgan
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Reuters
SunGard Trading and Risk Systems
SwapsWire
S.W.I.F.T.
UBS Warburg

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See "Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)."

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