One of the drivers for this has been to confirm the importance that high performance has within the FIX family of standards. FIX Protocol has become a standard for the way the world trades and is used by thousands of firms every day to complete millions of transactions, enabling the industry to minimise the cost of trading, maximise operational efficiencies and achieve increased transparency.

The next generation of the FIX Protocol will fully support high performance on all levels (application, presentation, session) with the objective to offer an open standard that can replace today’s proprietary interfaces for high performance trading and market data.

The existing High Performance Working Group (HPWG) will be extended with additional subgroups and include the initiatives previously conducted by the Market Data Optimization Working Group (MDOWG). The new HPWG will report directly into the FIX Global Technical Committee (GTC).

Hanno Klein, Co-Chair FIX Global Technical Committee, Senior Vice President, Deutsche Börse Group noted: “I believe FIX has already provided a huge value to the financial community by offering a standard language to express interactions between the various parties in order to fulfil their business requirements. FIX Trading Community is now in a unique position to take FIX to the next level by addressing the specific needs of high performance trading and market data.”

Jim Northey, Co-Chair FIX Global Technical Committee, Senior Partner, LaSalle Technology Group, said: “We thoroughly analyzed de facto standards and concluded there is still a need for a well-engineered high performance trading standard that encompasses key features of FIX, FIX Session Layer, ITCH®, OUCHâ� , SoupBinTCP/UFO. I am particularly excited by our work that captures the essential use cases of Itch, while being grounded in FIX. Our emerging standard is extensible and addresses the entire functionality required for market data dissemination."

Fred Malabre, Senior Director, CME Group, said:  “Over these last two years volunteers of the High Performance Working Group delivered Release Candidate Specifications for a high-performance version of FIX Protocol covering all layers, which provides a strong foundation for the next generation of FIX Protocol. I look forward to the extension of the working group to continue addressing business and standardization needs within the industry."

Rolf Andersson, CEO, Pantor Engineering, said: “The consolidation of the MDOWG into the HPWG is a logical step to get the necessary coordination and focus of our continued development efforts.”

To view the FIX High Performance Specifications and their current status please click here. [http://www.fixtradingcommunity.org/pg/structure/tech-specs/high-performance-specifications]

To view the FIX High Performance Working Group and their subgroups please click here. [http://www.fixtradingcommunity.org/pg/workinggroup/30207/high-performance-working-group/]

The FIX Trading Community will continue to work closely with its members, trade associations and regulatory bodies to ensure the evolution of markets as they undergo change and are presented with more regulatory change.

ITCH® and OUCHâ�  are registered trademarks, or service marks, of the NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. in the United States, other countries or both.