"FpML (Financial Products Markup Language) "is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes a new protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial derivatives over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) and initially focuses on interest rate swaps and Forward Rate Agreements (FRAs). FpML has been designed to be modular, easy-to-use and in particular intelligible to practitioners in the financial industry. Ultimately, it will allow for the electronic integration of a range of services, from Internet-based electronic dealing and confirmations to the risk analysis of client portfolios. It is expected to become the standard for the derivatives industry in the rapidly growing field of electronic commerce. The standard, which will be freely licensed, is intended to automate the flow of information across the entire derivatives partner and client network, independent of the underlying software or hardware infrastructure supporting the activities related to these transactions."
[June 09, 1999] A company announcement entitled "Introducing FpML: A New Standard for E-commerce": "J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP announced the release of FpML (Financial Products Markup Language), a new protocol for Internet-based electronic dealing and information sharing of financial derivatives, initially handling interest rate and foreign exchange products.
[August 20, 1999] A communiqué from Keri Jackson and Waqar Ali (Co-chairs, FpML Standards Committee) announced the availability of the first working draft of the FpML standard on the fpml.org Web site. In order to make it easier to download the specification, the editors have separated the initial FpML working draft document FpML 1.0b2 into three parts: (1) the Overview of FpML, (2) the Components and DTDs, and (3) the Sample FpML. The developers will be publicizing information about the organization and process of FpML.org available shortly; this information will include the upcoming schedule of FpML seminars and the list of proposed working groups. See URLs for the FpML 1.0b2 draft below.
"The FpML specification, which will be freely licensed, is expected to set the standard within these industries for the rapidly growing field of business-to-business electronic commerce. Based on XML, the emerging Internet standard for data-sharing between applications, FpML enables Internet-based integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis." [So,] 'How does this standard relate to others' like FIX/FIXML, OFX, etc.? "While XML is a standard, only the syntax has been standardized. To be useful, each industry is required to define a common set of industry-specific definitions. Several organizations have been working to define these market-segment-specific definitions. Examples of languages in progress include FIX, for the equities market, and OFX, for consumer financial activities. However, there has not yet been an effort to standardize product and trade information for foreign exchange and fixed income derivatives. There are many standards related to financial data processing for retail and commercial banking. Some of these standards and governing bodies, such as SWIFT and FIX, have an established history of successfully standardizing certain classes of financial transactions. Other standards, such as OFX, have recently been introduced, and are still evolving. All of these protocols have enabled market participants to lower transaction costs and reduce the operational risks associated with transaction initiation, confirmation, and settlement. There are currently no standards in active use to address the financial derivative markets, such as FX options and interest-rate derivatives (e.g., swaps). A standard for financial derivatives (e.g., interest-rate products) has not evolved for a variety of reasons, some of them technical and some of them related to the proprietary nature of capital markets banking." The associated Web site describes a new FpML Discussion Group - "a message board that provides a mechanism for the exchange of ideas relating to the FpML standard."
"Based on XML, FpML enables the integration of a range of services, from Internet-based electronic dealing and confirmations to the risk analysis of client portfolios. Some important benefits in using FpML include: (1) Financial instruments are specified in a format that is readable to both computers and humans. This enables system-to-system communication within business-to-business E-Commerce applications. (2) Financial information can be readily exchanged between diverse sets of applications, as applications and technology vendors provide both turn-key applications and core technology that support FpML-based information exchange. (3) Continued leverage of the innovation and standardization work from the internet community, as XML is continually advanced by the W3C and increasingly embraced by technology vendors."
[14 Jul 1999] Announcing: Co-chairs of the Technical Committee: (1) Axel Kramer (J.P. Morgan), Kramer_Axel@jpmorgan.com, (2) Mahesh Panjwani (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Mahesh.Panjwani@us.pwcglobal.com. And Co-chairs of the Standards Committee: (1) Keri Jackson (J.P. Morgan), Jackson_Keri@jpmorgan.com, (2) Waqar Ali (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Waqar.Ali@us.pwcglobal.com.
References:
Announcement 2003-02-26: "ISDA Releases FpML Version 2.0 Recommendation"
FpML Version 2.0. Recommendation 10-February-2003. PDF. [official source .DOC]
FpML v2.0 XML DTD. See also the official version and samples in the distribution.
Press release 1999-06-09: "J.P. Morgan, PricewaterhouseCoopers Propose FpML, a New E-commerce Standard - Financial Products Markup Language Handles FX and Fixed Income Derivatives." [local archive copy]
FpML Discussion Group. Yahoo Group 'fpml-discuss'
[November 12, 2003] "Take It to the Bank: Implementing FpML." By Andrew Parry (Deutsche Bank). In Web Services Journal (November 12, 2003). "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) is the global trade association representing participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry, a business covering swaps and options across all asset classes. One of its most notable achievements has been the formation of a standardized document architecture that has greatly facilitated market evolution. As a natural next step in market evolution, ISDA is working with market participants to express the hardcopy document architecture in softcopy form to allow increasing volumes in the derivatives markets to be handled with greater accuracy and lower cost, through extensive use of automation. As part of this process, ISDA formally adopted FpML.org, the organization that developed Financial products Mark-Up Language, a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. Based on XML, FpML establishes the industry protocol for sharing information and dealing in, financial swaps, derivatives, and structured products. FpML 4.0 provides XML Schema objects to describe the majority of derivative contracts by volume, derived directly from the legal framework established by ISDA, and is made freely available by them under public license... ISDA does not provide 'off-theshelf' support in the public standard; it is straightforward to create private extensions, for product description or workflow reasons. These XML Schema objects are composed to form different distinct document prototypes, such as a Trade Confirmation. This document-centric approach allows us to form document instances that represent both the full economics of the deal (or optionally, a reference to it) and the workflow state the document instance is currently in. Web services provide an ideal interface to services that operate on document instances given the support provided for structure, data typing, and platform neutrality. Support can be provided at all stages of process flow..."
[December 30, 2002] "Consistency Checking of Financial Derivatives Transactions." By Daniel Dui (University College London, Department of Computer Science), Wolfgang Emmerich (Zuhlke Engineering Ltd), Christian Nentwich (University College London, Department of Computer Science), and Bryan Thal (UBS Warburg). Paper presented at Net.Object Days 2002 (NODe 2002), October 7-10, 2002, Messekongresszentrum, Erfurt, Germany. 18 pages (with 23 references). Web-Services Track. "Financial institutions are increasingly using XML as a de-facto standard to represent and exchange information about their products and services. Their aim is to process transactions quickly, cost-effectively, and with minimal human intervention. Due to the nature of the financial industry, inconsistencies inevitably appear throughout the lifetime of a financial transaction and their resolution introduces cost and time overheads. We give an overview of requirements for inconsistency detection in our particular domain of interest: the over-the-counter (OTC) financial derivatives sector. We propose a taxonomy for the classes of consistency constraints that occur in this domain and present how xlinkit, a generic technology for managing the consistency of distributed documents, can be used to specify consistency constraints and detect transaction inconsistencies. We present the result of an evaluation where xlinkit has been used to specify the evaluation rules for version 1.0 of the Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)... The success of the evaluation has led the FpML steering committee to consider a proposal to use xlinkit as the standard language to express validation constraints for FpML documents. The high level of abstraction provided by xlinkit makes it particularly suitable. Moreover, FpML will use the xlinkit constraint checker as the reference implementation for an FpML validation engine against which the industry can compare their proprietary implementations. Finally, we believe that beyond derivative trading, xlinkit has many potential application areas. Problems similar to the ones described in this paper occur whenever semi-structured information is exchanged between organizations. This is the case in e-commerce and electronic business. For example, we have also investigated the use of xlinkit in procurement processes, such as those standardized by RosettaNet. Moreover, we have successfully applied xlinkit to detecting inconsistencies in software engineering documents..." [cache]
[November 19, 2002] "FpML.org Founder Announces World's First FpML Tools Community. Gem Soup Launches Collaborative Software Development for OTC Derivatives." - "Brian Lynn, a driving force behind the creation of FpML.org and formerly VP of eTrading Systems at JPMorgan Chase and Co., announced today the formation of Gem Soup LLC, the world's first organization devoted to collaborative development of software tools supporting FpML communications between firms. From 1999 until this month Mr. Lynn was co-chair of and JPMorgan's representative to FpML's important Standards Committee... Gem Soup LLC will develop or acquire initial versions of its products, and will provide its members with a collaboration environment, product strategy guidance, an automated testing suite, a rigorous release control process, and product documentation and support. Gem Soup members will contribute enhancements and fixes, provide input on priorities, and incorporate the tools into their own systems and business processes. Products that are currently planned include an FpML viewer/editor, a simple FpML API, a matching tool, a trade archive, and message validators and converters. Many of these will be based on simple product templates, which will make them easy to customize for new financial products. Several will be available in low-cost versions to support application development... Financial Products Markup Language is the official protocol of ISDA (the International Swaps and Derivatives Association) for describing privately negotiated financial derivative transactions... Gem Soup LLC is the world's first collaborative development community for FpML..."
[November 05, 2002] "Web Services on Wall Street -- Inside STP." By Gunjan Santami. From Integration Developer News (November 04, 2002). Case Study. "Straight-through Processing (STP), a solution that automates the end-to-end processing of transactions for all financial instruments from initiation to resolution, is set to revolutionize the financial industry. STP will streamline back-office activities, leading to reduced failures, lower risks, and significantly lower costs per transaction. It encompasses a set of applications, business processes, and standards that will redefine the settlement and processing paradigm within the capital markets industry... A SOA-based framework is capable of providing support for multiple XML standards, such as ISO 15022 [see ISO Working Group 10 - ISO WG 10] and FpML, at the same time, and adding additional standards support without significant redevelopment effort... With the use of Web Services as an enabling technology, STP-related problems and issues will shift from connectivity among different applications in-house and with trading partner applications to the content and structure of the information that is exchanged. The analogy here will be that Web Services will define the standard postal mechanism along with the envelope and addressing format for exchanging letters. What is inside the envelope (the content of the letter) will be defined by the XML-based business process standard, such as ISO 15022 XML..."
[July 20, 2002] FPML Validator from xlinkit. "You can use this form to validate an FpML 1.0 compliant document. Just enter the URL of your document and click on the button... The xlinkit FpML Validator validates FpML 1.0 compliant documents against additional integrity constraints. You can submit any document that is valid against the FpML DTD by entering the document URL in the form. The extra checks consist of 28 rules that check the validity of dates, proper referencing between business centers and more. Click here for a complete list of rules expressed in the xlinkit rule language. The rules were provided in natural language by Steven Lord and the FpML Interest Derivatives Products Working Group and formalised in the xlinkit XML rule language by Daniel Dui and Christian Nentwich. Each rule can be seen in the original XML form or rendered into a more accessible HTML representation..."
[June 26, 2002] "ISDA Issues Call For Participation for FpML Messaging Working Group." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) [on June 26, 2002] issued a call for participation for the messaging working group for the Financial products Markup Language (FpML) standard. FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. 'The timing is right to focus on the business processes,' said Michael Liberman, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs and Co-Chair of the FpML standards committee. The working group will extend the FpML standard to include messages supporting business processes relating to pricing, trading, risk management and credit checking... FpML is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial swaps, derivatives and structured products, over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. Currently focusing on interest rate derivatives, FX and equity derivatives, FpML will eventually cover all categories of privately negotiated derivatives. ISDA is the global trade association representing leading participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has more than 575 member institutions from 46 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities. Information about ISDA and its activities is available on the Association's web site."
[June 07, 2002] "ISDA Issues Call for Participation For FpML Credit Derivatives Working Group." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) today issued a call for participation for the credit derivatives working group for the Financial products Markup Language (FpML) standard. FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. The working group will focus on credit default swaps as a product to include in the FpML standard and will work in close collaboration with the ISDA documentation group currently reviewing the 1999 ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions. The work on credit derivatives will form part of version 4.0 of the FpML standard. The target completion date for the version 4.0 working draft is December 2002. The working group will start from an initial proposal that can be found on the FpML website. The charter of the credit derivatives working group and the full scope of the work for version 4.0 can be found at www.fpml.org/wg/cd/index.asp... FpML is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial swaps, derivatives and structured products, over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. Version 3.0 of the standard covers Interest Rate Derivatives, FX and Equity Derivatives. All categories of privately negotiated derivatives will eventually be incorporated into the standard..."
[May 06, 2002] "ISDA Issues Call for Participation. FpML Working Group to Extend Equity Derivatives Coverage." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) today issued a call for participation for the Equity Derivatives Working group for the Financial products Markup Language (FpML) standard. FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. After the inclusion of the basic equity derivatives in FpML Version 3.0, the working group intends to cover more exotic equity derivatives. 'There is interest in the industry for equity derivative coverage and a great deal of momentum within the working group,' said Brian Lynn, Co-Chair of the FpML Standards Committee and Vice President e-Trading, Cross-Business e-Commerce group for JP Morgan Chase. The working group plans to immediately start work on version 4.0 of the standard focusing on inclusion of option features such as Asians, Barriers, Baskets, Bermudans, Binaries, Quantos, Composites, different forms of deferred term options and different option trading strategies. 'We are pleased with the continued progress of FpML in the area of equity derivatives and the success of the FpML working group in developing products in coordination with the ISDA documentation working group,' said Robert G. Pickel, Executive Director and CEO of ISDA. ISDA's documentation working group on equity derivatives is currently reviewing the Equity Definitions. The charter of the Equity Derivatives working group and the full scope of the work for version 4.0 can be found at http://www.fpml.org/wg/equity/index.asp. Parties interested in participating in this working group should complete the form available on the FpML website; the time commitment for this working group is one-half a day a week. FpML is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial derivatives over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. All categories of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives will eventually be incorporated into the standard... ISDA is the global trade association representing leading participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has more than 560 member institutions from 44 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities."
[January 25, 2002] "ISDA and FpML.org Integration Finalized." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) announced today the completion of the integration of Financial products Markup Language (FpML) into ISDA's organizational structure. FpML.org and ISDA finalized documents assigning assets related to the FpML standard to ISDA. Today's action is the final step in the integration process initiated last year to combine ISDA's organizational strengths with FpML's technology base for sharing information on, and dealing in, OTC derivatives. In recent activity, a Trial Recommendation was issued last week for FpML Version 2.0, the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. FpML Version 2.0 extends interest rate product coverage to include interest rate options such as swaptions, caps and floors, and extends the swap definition to include FX resetables, cancelables and early termination provisions..."
[November 14, 2001] "FpML Joins Forces with ISDA. Combined Focus Strengthens Technology Supporting Electronic Trading of Financial Derivatives." - "FpML.org (FpML) has announced that FpML and The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) have agreed to integrate the FpML standards development process into ISDA... The FpML initiative will function as an ISDA committee and related working groups and will continue to communicate via the www.fpml.org website. Brian Lynn, co-chair of the FpML.org Standards Committee, said that the Committee retains responsibility for approving new versions of the standard. 'Strong input from vendors is a key success factor for the development and adoption of the standard,' Mr. Lynn said. 'Vendors will continue to be represented on the Standards Committee and on Working Groups.' ISDA is the global trade association representing leading participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has more than 540 member institutions from 41 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities... FpML.org is comprised of volunteers from some 30 companies who participate on the Board of Directors, the Standards Committee or as members of Working Groups. Volunteers are employees at leading banks, information and software vendors, and systems integrators. FpML is a freely licensed standard designed to support the electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives between trading partners, including financial institutions and their client network." See also the "Talking Points for the FpML/ISDA Integration."
[August 08, 2001] "Reuters Use of FpML 1.0 in New Internet Trading System Indicates Growing Industry Acceptance, says FpML.org." - "Planned use of FpML 1.0 by Reuters in a new Internet-based system for traders in the Overnight Index Swaps (OIS) market is a clear indication of the new standard's general industry acceptance, Brian Lynn, co-chair of FpML.org's Standards Committee said today. Lynn, a vice president responsible for e-trading systems, and FpML program manager at JP Morgan, is one of several major securities industry volunteers working to develop the new standard for Internet trading of OTC derivatives. Mark Robson, Reuters Director, Business Development, Money Transaction Solutions, said, "Dealing for Swaps, an enhancement to Reuters Dealing 3000, will use FpML version 1.0 to export trade data. We aim to launch the service in the fall." He explained Dealing for Swaps as "a secure, browser-based solution allowing traders in the OIS market to automate their workflow, structure trade negotiations, reduce processing costs and increase their overall efficiency." The enhancement will be available via Reuters Dealing 3000 and delivered over the Radianz network. Lynn said, "Reuters is an active participant in developing FpML and now becomes one of the early adopters of the standard. Reuters has dedicated four employees to working with FpML.org and is a major contributor to our Business Message and Architecture and our FX options working groups." He added, "The success of this standard is based on volunteers from multiple industry segments donating their time to address the myriad technical issues involved in automating the flow of information across the entire derivatives network." FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed e-Commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. FpML.org is a non-profit consortium comprised of leading global derivatives trading institutions, financial, technology and consulting firms. FpML.org endorsed FpML version 1.0, covering interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements, as a recommendation in May 2001. Version 2.0, covering interest rate options such as caps, floors and swaptions, will be released for trial recommendation later this year."
[April 19, 2001] "Financial products Markup Language Readies for Cross-Firm Deployment. OTC Derivatives Trading Standard Reduces Costs, Broadens Markets." - "Financial products Markup Language, the e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives, will be used across firms by the middle of the year, delegates to the FpML Spring Forum were told today. In the keynote address, Tim Fredrickson, UBS Warburg's Managing Director and Global Head of Fixed Income Derivatives said, 'using FpML to support trading between institutions represents a major step in the standard's evolution. Ultimately it will allow electronic integration of a range of services from electronic trading and confirmation to portfolio specification for risk analysis. 'Each OTC instrument is a unique document,' Mr. Fredrickson said. 'Each one must be checked and counterchecked, and the cost of processing them is estimated at $1 billion annually. This high cost effectively shuts smaller firms out of the market,' he said. 'By dramatically reducing the processing costs, FpML will open the market to new players, increase competition and become part of the everyday management of financial and trading institutions.' The first firm expected to deploy FpML externally is SwapsWire, a collaborative venture within the interest rate derivatives community. The company, an active participant in the non-profit FpML consortium, recently stated that the XML-based FpML standard is seen as a vehicle supporting its business objectives. The FpML Spring Forum includes updates on the standard and presentations on its use and future direction. Breakout sessions cover proprietary vs. industry financial standards, solutions for straight-through processing, XML tools and details on FpML activities regarding interest rate derivatives products and equity derivatives/FX products. FpML.org is a consortium comprised of financial, technology and consulting firms. The standard is freely licensed and is intended to automate the flow of information across the entire derivatives partner network, independent of the underlying software or hardware infrastructure supporting activities related to these transactions Organizations actively participating in the FpML standard include: Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Mizuho Capital Markets Corporation, Goldman Sachs, International Business Machines, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Reuters, SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, SwapsWire, S.W.I.F.T., and UBS Warburg."
[August 22, 2000] A communiqué from Cathy S. Yesenosky announces that the Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) Architecture document is now in last call review. Members and Working Groups of the FpML Consortium and other interested parties released the FpML specifications as working drafts July, 2000. The principal FpML Version 1.0 Specifiction (with the FpML DTD) is currently in a last call review phase which ends on 25-August-2000. FpML (Financial Products Markup Language) "is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes a new protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial derivatives over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) and initially focuses on interest rate swaps and Forward Rate Agreements (FRAs). FpML has been designed to be modular, easy-to-use and in particular intelligible to practitioners in the financial industry. Ultimately, it will allow for the electronic integration of a range of services, from Internet-based electronic dealing and confirmations to the risk analysis of client portfolios. It is expected to become the standard for the derivatives industry in the rapidly growing field of electronic commerce. The standard, which will be freely licensed, is intended to automate the flow of information across the entire derivatives partner and client network, independent of the underlying software or hardware infrastructure supporting the activities related to these transactions." The announcement says: "the FpML Architecture Version 1.0 Working Draft has been advanced to the Last Call stage. The Last Call period is expected to end September 1, 2000. We encourage interested parties to provide comments on the specification as soon as possible. Please send comments via email to fpml-issues@egroups.com. Please report each issue in a separate email message. An archive of the comments is available at: http://www.egroups.com/messages/fpml-issues. An issues list is also maintained on the web site. The FpML specifications are available at http://www.fpml.org/spec/.
[June 01, 2000] FpML 1.0 Working Draft. 01-June-2000. Last Call Ends 25-August-2000. "FpML is an application of XML, an internet standard language for describing data shared between computer applications. The Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) is a new protocol enabling e-commerce activities in the field of financial derivatives. The development of the standard, controlled by market participant firms, will ultimately allow the electronic integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis. All types of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives will, over time, be incorporated into the standard, although the initial focus is vanilla interest rate derivatives. [Scope:] The scope of the Products Working Group is to: (1) Complete the definition of the trade content of an interest rate swap supporting the following features: Compounding, Averaging, Principal Payments (to support cross-currency swaps), Notional Amortization, Step-up and Step-down Coupon and Spread Schedules, Additional Fees and Payments; (2) Complete the definition of the trade content of a forward rate agreement (FRA)." See the DTD and samples.
[June 01, 2000] FpML Architecture 1.0. 1-June-2000.
See also: Open Financial Exchange (OFX/OFE)
See also: Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX)
See also: Open Trading Protocol (OTP)
[November 08, 2000] "FpML Emerging E-Commerce Standard for OTC Derivatives Trading and Key to Lower Processing Costs. Future of $88 Trillion Derivatives Market Charted at London Symposium." - "FpML (Financial products Markup Language) is the emerging e-commerce standard for OTC derivatives trading, Phil Ellis of Cygnifi Derivatives Services told a symposium of approximately 160 representatives of financial institutions and technology vendors here November 1. Mr. Ellis, who is Head of Solutions Business for the New York-based firm, said 'FpML has a well-defined architecture to integrate a number of applications with diverse technologies and makes it easier for financial institutions to reach consensus on an external standard rather than 'rolling their own'.' The symposium was sponsored by FpML.org, Inc., a consortium of leading banks, information and software vendors, and systems integrators. Matt Meinel, Managing Director for UBS Warburg, opened the symposium by noting that the OTC derivatives market has grown to more than $88 trillion of notional since the interest rate swaps market emerged in the 1980s. 'This represents a 10% increase overall during 1999,' he said, 'and more than a 20% increase in interest rate swaps alone.' Damian Kissane Managing Director and Head of Derivatives eBusiness for Deutsche Bank, said 'FpML is essential from a business perspective to drive down the cost of processing OTC derivatives, and to satisfy the information demands of the market. Electronic trading is the wave of the future,' he said. 'Supporting it requires a commonality of straight-through processing between front and back offices and ultimately between institutions that participate in this market.' Other presentations described how FpML is being used at SunGard Trading and Risk Systems; an FpML Toolkit for Java developed by Kronos Software, and work done by Logica in implementing an FpML-based middle office system for managing exotic trades at Commerzbank. According to FpML.org, some 30 financial, technology and consulting firms are at work to broaden the application of the standard into areas beyond interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements. Responding to demands for faster time-to-market and broader product coverage, the organization is planning to roll out its next release in early 2001 to accommodate interest rate caps and floors, interest rate swaptions, optional and mandatory early swap terminations, basis swaps and cancelable swaps. The consortium will review the scope of this and future releases based on the feedback received at the London symposium and one held earlier in New York. FpML provides the derivatives industry with a unique opportunity to streamline the flow of information across all front-to-back-office processes, promising to dramatically reduce the estimated $1 billion annual cost of OTC trading in financial derivatives. It supports exploring new ways of doing business and challenges existing outdated practices. FpML is a freely licensed XML-based standard. It is designed to support the electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives between trading partners, including financial institutions and their client network. The standard received a 2000 Technological Development of the Year award from Risk Magazine."
[November 08, 1999] "PricewaterhouseCoopers Adopts Extensibility's XML Authority as a Key Component of Its Universal Data Interface Middleware Product." - "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest professional services organization, and Extensibility Inc., the leading XML schema solutions provider, have joined forces to provide schema formation capabilities to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Universal Data Interface (UDI) middleware product designed for e-business applications. Extensibility's XML Authority will be integrated into UDI to design and manage XML-based grammars. PricewaterhouseCoopers and J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated jointly proposed FpML (Financial Products Markup Language), a new protocol for Internet-based electronic dealing and information sharing of financial derivatives, initially handling interest rate and foreign exchange products. FpML enables Internet-based integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis. Extensibility's XML Authority also is being used to design, document and manage the FpML schema. The UDI server engine is an established middleware technology with more than one dozen sites currently in production. In addition to its extensive connectivity and middleware functionality, the UDI also is a high-speed validating XML parser, with XML-based object definitions..."
[October 14, 1999] "Eight Firms Form FpML Steering Committee, Stepping Up Commitment to Derivatives E-commerce Standard. Technical committee meetings attract large audiences; additional vendors announce support." - "Senior derivatives leaders from eight financial firms announced the formation of the FpML Steering Committee. FpML (Financial Products Markup Language) is a business-to-business e-commerce protocol for derivatives. The Steering Committee signals the firms' support of the FpML standard at the business level and will guide the FpML organization in its development of the protocol. The announcement follows two major FpML summits that drew hundreds of derivatives industry specialists on two continents. Initial member firms of the Steering Committee will include Bank of America, the Chase Manhattan Corporation, Deutsche Bank AG, Fuji Capital Markets Corporation (a subsidiary of The Fuji Bank, Limited), J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Paribas, and Warburg Dillon Read, the investment banking division of UBS AG. A small number of additional members are expected to join the committee in upcoming weeks. The committee will provide senior business-level oversight for development of the standard, including setting priorities and committing resources. Several members of the Steering Committee plan to begin testing prototype trade affirmation workflows using FpML in the near future. FpML is based on XML, the emerging Internet standard for data sharing between applications. The FpML protocol enables Internet-based integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis. It promises to reduce the cost and improve the quality of risk management for businesses globally. J.P. Morgan and PricewaterhouseCoopers proposed the standard in June and have since developed industry consensus around the standard."
"FpML -- Initial Design Tradeoffs." By Axel Kramer (Fragment Art & Research). Presentation [abstract] from the Montréal XML Developers' Conference, August 19, 1999. "FpML (Financial Products Markup Language) is an XML-based language for describing derivative instruments in the financial industry. Its aim is to standardize the external representation of those kind of instruments and thus to enable a streamlining of the trading and processing of such instruments between financial institutions as well as to open new business opportunities with regards to the Internet. The development of FpML is financial industry driven and was initially a collaborative effort between J.P.Morgan and PricewaterhouseCoopers. It is moving to an open process with the establishment of committees composed from financial institutions and vendors. In the initial development phase of FpML many technical decisions and tradeoffs were made. This talk is about moving those before an expert XML audience in order to initiate a two-way dialog: explaining how we used XML and what difficulties we encountered, and getting feedback from others with similar experience."
[July 12, 1999] "FpML Gains Further Momentum as Infinity Signs On To Technical Committee and Plans Product Integration. Enterprise software leader to work toward convergence with Network Trade Model." - "J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated announced today that Infinity, A SunGard Company, joined the technical committee of FpML (Financial Products Markup Language). Infinity, a leading provider of enterprise software for financial trading, risk management, and operations, has committed to working on the committee and supporting the use of FpML and the convergence of FpML and Infinity's Network Trade Model. The FpML standard, announced last month by J.P. Morgan and PricewaterhouseCoopers, will be licensed freely to the technical and financial markets and enables Internet-based electronic dealing and information sharing of financial derivatives, initially focusing on interest rate and foreign exchange products. Based on XML, the emerging Internet standard for data-sharing between applications, the FpML protocol enables Internet-based integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis."
[June 17, 1999] "J.P. Morgan, PricewaterhouseCoopers Announce that IBM Will Join Team to Help Establish E-commerce Standard. Technology leader will join technical committee for new XML-based protocol." - "J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP announced that International Business Machines Corp. would participate on the technical committee for the recently announced Internet-based protocol FpML (XML-based Financial Products Markup Language), a specification for electronic dealing and information sharing of financial derivatives. The two firms also announced that IBM would help create FpML seminars for technical and financial services professionals worldwide. The FpML standard, which will be licensed freely to the technical and financial markets, is based on XML, the emerging Internet standard for data-sharing between applications. The FpML specification will allow the Internet-based integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis."
[July 01, 1999] "Forecross Joins FpML Team Existing Systems Technology Leader Joins Technical Committee for New XML Standard." - "San Francisco-based Forecross Corp. announced today that it has joined the Technical Committee of the FpML(TM) standards organization, which was founded in June 1999, by J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The company will be represented on this committee by Kim O. Jones, president, CEO and co-founder. FpML (Financial Products Markup Language -- www.fpml.org) is a new protocol for Internet-based electronic dealing and information sharing of financial derivatives, initially focused on interest rate and foreign exchange products. It is based on XML (extensible markup language) which is the emerging Internet standard for electronic commerce and data sharing between applications and businesses. The FpML specification, which will be freely licensed, is expected to become a standard in the rapidly growing field of business-to-business, Internet-based integration for a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis."
[June 15, 1999] "webMethods Announces Support for FpML Protocol Serving the Financial Services Industry. webMethods is First Vendor to Commit to FpML Support; Company Contributes its XML Expertise Alongside J.P. Morgan and PriceWaterhouseCoopers." - "webMethods, Inc., [a] leading provider of XML-based solutions for business-to-business e-commerce and integration, today announced support for the FpML standard (Financial Products Markup Language), an open XML-based protocol that supports financial derivatives, e-commerce and data sharing between applications. Led by J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the FpML standard will facilitate seamless Internet-based integration for a wide range of client services, allowing the financial services market to take full advantage of Internet connectivity while lowering operational risks. As the adoption of XML-based standards continues to accelerate, webMethods B2B ensures the development of open trading communities across multiple industries through support of current and emerging business-to-business initiatives and XML standards, including ACORD, OBI, Microsoft BizTalk, Commerce XML (cXML), RosettaNet, FIXML, and FpML."
