Financial Information Exchange (FIX)
Candlefocus EditorThe FIX protocol is widely used throughout all areas of financial market infrastructure. It has become the de facto standard for front-office messaging and is increasingly used to support mid- and back-office operations. The protocol is highly regarded for its efficiency, accuracy and integrity of data transmissions, which combine to make it a trusted and required form of communication between financial institutions.
Currently, the FIX is widely employed for equities, equity options, bonds, convertible bonds, commodities, derivatives, futures, foreign-exchange (FX) and over-the-counter (OTC) products trading. Additionally, the protocol supports end-of-day or intraday post-trade reporting and clearance message flows.
The FIX is widely used throughout both buy-side and sell-side participants, including institutional investors, banks, brokers, exchanges and trading platforms. The protocol is employed for pre-trade and post-trade activities, fulfilling needs ranging from pre-trade price discovery to post-trade cash settlements. The FIX's ease of use and scalability characteristics have enabled such diverse use-cases as algorithmic trading, straight-through processing (STP), automated order routing, and business process automation.
The beauty of the FIX protocol is its flexibility to easily support a broad scope of business applications. This versatility and the ability to quickly modify the standard based on emerging market requirements has kept the FIX resilient and ahead of competing data exchange standards. As a result, the FIX is well-positioned to continue to remain the leading protocol for financial services data exchange in the future.