The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) is pleased to announce voluntary beta testing for the Options Symbology Initiative (OSI) has concluded with successful results.
This round of testing precedes the mandated Scripted Industry Testing taking place in October, November, December and January. The final conversion date for the new symbology is February 12, 2010.
Over 6,000 trades were submitted by 32 OCC clearing members through the seven options exchanges during the voluntary beta test. These clearing members account for 78% of the year to date cleared options volume. Trade and post-trade data were processed through the OCC ENCORE clearing system with cleared data being delivered to participating clearing members.
The beta test was designed to highlight possible technical issues associated with clearing member, exchange and OCC test environments in preparation of the mandated Scripted Industry Testing scheduled for October, November, December and January. While some issues occurred with exchange start-up and technical communication between the exchanges and OCC, those issues were resolved on the test date and not related to the OSI key. Overall, OCC has received positive feedback from the exchanges and clearing members regarding the results of the beta test.
The Symbology Committee, comprised of representatives from broker dealers, exchanges, vendors and OCC, developed the implementation plan and is very encouraged by the results of this test. The test has allowed clearing members to process OSI compliant data for downstream testing and validate the hand off of data using the new OSI key between clearing members, exchanges and OCC.