What is FIX protocol?

Techie stuff... but relevant

I was browsing the net, for the Financial Transaction Exchanges during 2008, and had saved a page about FIX Protocol.

Very interesting.

The Financial Information Exchange protocol (FIX) is an open specification intended to streamline electronic communications in the financial securities industry. FIX supports multiple formats and types of communications between financial entities including email, texting, trade allocation, order submissions, order changes, execution reporting and advertisements.

FIX is employed by numerous financial vendors and has emerged as the favored specification among trading partners. The concept originated in 1992 when several brokers expressed interest in using the fledgling Internet to improve the speed, volume and efficiency of their trading activities.

FIX is vendor-neutral and can improve business flow by:

• Minimizing the number of redundant and unnecessary messages.
• Enhancing the client base.
• Reducing time spent in voice-based telephone conversations.
• Reducing the need for paper-based messages, transaction and documentation.

The FIX protocol issession- and application- based and is used mostly in business-to-business transactions. (A similar protocol, OFX (Open Financial Exchange) is query-based and intended mainly for retail transactions.) FIX compatible with nearly all commonly used networking technologies.

FIX is owned and maintained by FIX Protocol, Ltd.

***

Don't ask me about this picture and the relation to FIX Protocol.



--
Regards
Vijayashankar