JOIN FPL - GET INVOLVED, THE INDUSTRY IS SHAPED BY THOSE WHO DO!

History
Benefits
Pricing
Contact

HISTORY

What is FIX Protocol Limited?
FIX Protocol Limited (FPL) is the non-profit industry association responsible for defining, managing and promoting increased usage of FIX as an enabler for electronic trading. This benefits the industry by facilitating greater transparency, straight-through-processing and cost savings.

Since its inception, the FIX Protocol has undergone significant development and its history represents one of our industry's truly unique success stories. FIX is now the de facto messaging standard for the electronic communication of equity, listed derivative and foreign exchange trades and is developing momentum within the fixed income markets. Its potential to further improve the trading process and provide new capabilities for all industry participants is limitless. As an example, the FIX Protocol was traditionally developed to facilitate buy-side to sell-side communication, however, is now expanding into the exchange and regulatory space.

Technical and business professionals from FPL member firms coordinate their activities and organize their work through a series of committees, subcommittees, and working groups, all overseen by a Global Steering Committee. FPL's groups aim to ensure consistency of protocol application as it is extended into new markets, asset classes, and phases of the trade lifecycle. In addition to the rigorous engineering and technical efforts undertaken to ensure the ongoing applicability of the protocol to financial-market systems, the FIX Protocol benefits from an energetic educational and marketing effort that seeks to keep the specification viable, relevant, and responsive to the needs of market participants.

Why was FPL established?
The origins of the FIX Protocol date back to the early 1990s. FIX began, and continues today, to be defined, managed, and promoted through the collaboration of volunteers who also use the protocol. In 1998, these collaborating firms established FIX Protocol Limited (FPL), a not-for-profit organization, to promote adoption of the protocol. Establishing a legal entity provided the ability to collect membership dues and to contract and fund services key to managing and expanding the use of FIX, such as developing and hosting the FIX website.

In today's environment, FPL plays an even greater role with respect to intellectual property and other concerns. Member firms have also realized that being solely dependent upon volunteers can be limiting and often results in an inequitable distribution of work. As a result, FPL has taken steps over recent years to engage service providers to help supplement the efforts of volunteers, to expand the scope of what FPL is able to accomplish, and to support the operational aspects of the organization. FPL has been able to increase its capability to fund projects and services. FPL's membership base has more than quadrupled since it began its membership expansion effort in 2002. FPL now benefits from a membership that spans the financial services sector and includes Buy-side and Sell-side firms, Exchanges/ECNs, Vendors of FIX based products and services, Regulators and other Industry Associations.

BENEFITS

How will FPL Membership benefit my Firm?

The vendor neutral FIX Protocol is used to conduct most of the trading activity worldwide, and although FIX has established prominence in its use for equities and in certain markets, it is still very much poised for growth. FPL is an industry initiative that benefits from the participation of close to 300 firms from across the global financial services sector. Some examples of how the firm types involved benefit are as follows:

• Sell-side - Stay at the forefront of a mission critical component of your business
• Buy-side - Leverage standards and drive down costs
• Vendors - Continue to innovate and keep products up to date
• ECNs/Exchanges - Shape the evolution of the protocol for trading and market data gateway
• Regulators - Understand and utilize the power of FIX for market oversight

Member firms enjoy a unique opportunity to participate, influence, and promote the development and use of a protocol they use to conduct their business on a daily basis. Below are some direct examples of FPL membership benefits.

Support the FIX Protocol financially to ensure long-term protection of the FIX Protocol by:

• Protecting the intellectual property of the protocol so that the industry can confidently continue to use it as a free standard, while also enabling others to build and support commercial products and services based upon it
• Enabling FPL to engage service providers with the expertise to supplement volunteer efforts so that the work required to continually develop FIX in response to industry requirements is possible
• Contributing to the success and ongoing viability of the FIX Protocol by protecting and enhancing your FIX-related investments and ensuring that FIX remains an open standard
• Enabling FPL to continue to develop the FPL website and its discussion forums, which allow over 50,000 registered users to access the latest specifications, FIX-related news and other information
  

Participate in this practical and demonstrative joint industry initiative with buy-side, sell-side, market centers, vendors and others working to improve the global trading process by:

• Interacting and working directly with experts, peers, competitors, clients and prospective clients in a neutral forum through committees and working groups to resolve FIX-related technical, implementation, and business issues affecting you and your customers
• Contributing towards the decision making processes to influence how the protocol should evolve to achieve even greater return on investment for existing and future FIX implementations
• Influencing the future direction of the FIX suite of standards and ensuring that FIX evolves to meet the needs of the global electronic trading industry
• Taking advantage of speaking opportunities at industry conferences
• Improving the global trading process by developing and promoting the increased usage of the FIX Protocol as an enabler for electronic trading among your clients and within your firm
• Guiding the direction of FPL by leading or participating in the election of leaders of FPL committees

Receive complimentary access to valuable tools and industry best practices such as :

Demonstrate your firm's commitment to the FIX Protocol as an active participant in FPL by:

• Raising your profile and promoting your firm's FIX capabilities and usage with preferential placement in the FIX Products & Services Directory on the FIX website
• Gaining recognition as an FPL sponsor via the FIX website and in other publications that list FPL membership
• Taking advantage of discounted marketing opportunities at FPL-sponsored conferences
• Using the FPL Member Logo in your marketing materials, at your conference exhibit booth or on your website

Obtain other opportunities such as:

PRICING

FPL is keen to gain broad industry participation and to this effect a range of membership options are available to meet the budgetary needs of different industry sectors. See the full details in the table below.