This move recognises the significant work currently underway by the group and the organisation's commitment to meeting the needs and adoption of FIX by this market sector. The group will become the FPL Global Exchanges and Markets Committee, an advancement which will grant its leaders a seat on the FPL Global Steering Committee, ensuring that the needs and issues pertinent to this market sector are addressed at a global level.

Since the launch of the working group in May 2006, it has witnessed significant growth, demonstrating the ever increasing importance of FIX to this sector. The group has successfully attracted the interest and membership of over 35 exchanges and ECNs globally, with some of its most active participants from the BM&F - Brazilian Mercantile & Futures Exchange, CME Group, Deutsche Börse Group, International Securities Exchange, OMX and PLUS Markets Group.

The aim of the FPL Global Exchanges and Markets Committee will be to enable and promote the harmonised usage of FIX by exchanges, matching and reporting utilities and new marketplaces. Significant work has already been conducted by the working group to this effect including the recently released Exchanges and ECNs FIX Recommended Best Practices Guide. In building upon the key accomplishments of the working group, the committee will seek to reduce the redundancies that limit the achievement of optimal performance, and remove ambiguities to attain true standardisation for firms in environments where a single marketplace interacts with multiple clients, who in turn interact with multiple marketplaces.

The new committee will benefit from the continued leadership of Kathleen Grey (BNP Paribas) and Hanno Klein (Deutsche Börse Group) who will be the co-chairs of this committee and Matt Simpson (CME Group) as the Committee's Vice-Chair.

Commenting on this development Matt Simpson stated, "Exchanges play a critical role in creating efficiencies across the industry, both in terms of cost and technology. FIX provides an excellent basis from which to achieve these goals, however it is important that Exchanges and other market places are utilising the protocol in a consistent manner to ensure the delivery of benefit to all market participants. The work of the FPL Global Exchanges and Markets Committee will prove pivotal to this goal."

Hanno Klein commented "FIX has reached the point of maturity where it provides good coverage for a wide range of exchange services, especially in the areas of core trading and market data distribution. Harmonised usage of FIX across exchanges and other marketplaces will be key to realising the benefits of standard access that exchange participants have been asking for.

Kathleen Grey added "As a result of this global elevation, I hope we can continue capturing and documenting FIX usage by exchanges and other marketplaces on a world-wide basis and continue to encourage greater adoption of FIX across the globe."