FPL:History of FIX
From FIXwiki
The Financial Information eXchange (FIX) effort was initiated in 1992 by a group of institutions and brokers interested in streamlining their trading processes. These firms felt that they, and the industry as a whole, could benefit from efficiencies derived through the electronic communication of indications, orders and executions. The result is FIX, an open message standard controlled by no single entity, that can be structured to match the business requirements of each firm. The benefits are:
- From the business flow perspective, FIX provides institutions, brokers, and other market participants a means of reducing the clutter of unnecessary telephone calls and scraps of paper, and facilitates targeting high quality information to specific individuals.
- For technologists, FIX provides an open standard that leverages the development effort so that they can efficiently create links with a wide range of counter-parties.
- For vendors, FIX provides ready access to the industry, with the incumbent reduction in marketing effort and increase in potential client base.
Openness has been the key to FIX's success. For that reason, while encouraging vendors to participate with the standard, FIX has remained vendor neutral. Similarly, FIX avoids over-standardization. It does not demand a single type of carrier (i.e. FIX can be transmitted over leased lines, frame relay, Internet, etc.), nor a single security protocol. It leaves many of these decisions to the individual firms that are using it. We do expect that, over time, the rules of engagement in these non-standardized areas will converge as technologies mature.
FIX is now used by a variety of firms and vendors. It has clearly emerged as the inter-firm messaging protocol of choice. FIX has grown from its original buyside-to-sellside equity trading roots. FIX is now used by markets (e.g. exchanges, ECNs, and ATSs) and other market participants. It has become the de-facto messaging standard for pre-trade and trade communication globally within the Equity markets, and is now experiencing rapid expansion into the post-trade space, supporting Straight-Through-Processing (STP) from Indication-of-Interest (IOI) to Allocations and Confirmations. From this foundation, the protocol is gathering increased momentum, as it continues to expand beyond Equities across the Foreign Exchange, Fixed Income and Derivative markets.
The process for modifications to the specification is very open with input and feedback encouraged from the community. Those interested in providing input to the FIX Protocol are encouraged use the FIXwiki as well as the FIX website Discussion forums.
The FIX website is the main source of information, discussion, and notification of FIX-related events.
