Fixed Income Runs on FIX

Current Status
The first phase of the initiative consists of a four volume set of best practices documents to be published by FPL by the beginning of March 2012 after the approved gap analysis material has been incorporated. The workflows supported in the four volumes include:

1. Security definition and reference data requests

• Dealers can request and subscribe to securities traded on the SEF.

• Dealers can submit a security definition to the SEF and be provided with an identifier for that security.

• Dealers can request the trading status of a given security.

The working group participants made a deliberate decision to base the instrument definition requests and identification flows on established conventions used by the listed futures market. The ability for dealers to submit a security definition to the SEF provides flexibility in this evolving market where securit attributes may to be adjusted to accommodate trading needs.

2. Pricing data subscription

• Dealers can subscribe to market data prices from the SEF.

3. Contribution of prices to the market

•Dealers can submit quotes into the market for distribution to customers.

4 Quote/Negotiation dialog

•Dealers can respond to directed quote requests from customers through the SEF.

•Dealers may engage with the customers in a negotiation workflow, where countering is possible if the customer chooses to negotiation with the dealer.

5. Hit/Lift and negotiation of submitted quotes

•Dealers receive response against quotes that are contributed to the market.

•Dealers may counter the quote and negotiate with the customer through the SEF.

•Dealers may confirm execution of the quote.

6. Central order book flow

•Dealers submitting orders into the central order for matching

•Dealers receive fills report for matched orders

For readers knowledgeable of the futures market, several of the workflows above may be familiar, particularly the securities definition and reference data request workflows, market data subscription, and quote contribution and the central order book workflows.