Presentations by SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, Cygnifi Derivatives Services, Kronos Software and FinTrack Systems will focus on the utilisation of FpML (Financial products Markup Language) within their onw Internet-based product offerings.

Neil Wright, Chase Manhattan Bank's senior vice president for global derivatives operations, is to open the symposium with an executive summary of the current status and future direction of FpML, which was introduced to the marketplace in July. Presentations by Reuters and J P Morgan will describe features and benefits of the current release, FpML Version 1.0, and how the standard will integrate with SwapsWire, the online network and protocol venture supported by a group of leading derivatives traders.

Vendor community case studies will be followed by roundtable discussions.

The symposium, to which all participants in derivatives markets are invited, is under the auspices of FpML.org, a consortium of global financial institutions and technology suppliers.

Philippe Khuong-Huu, chairman of the FpML.org board of directors, says the standard has the potential to halve the estimated $1 billion annual cost of processing, speeding the execution and increasing the accuracy of OTC trading in financial derivatives.

"FpML is attractive because it permits, for the first time, all stages of a transaction to be linked seamlessly along a single software chain," he says. "By eliminating costly, time-consuming processes for creating and executing what essentially are unique two-party contracts, FpML is expected to encourage an increasing number of organisations to use derivatives as a means of hedging risk."

He adds that while FpML.org expects to automate the flow of operation across the entire derivatives network, current emphasis is on interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements.