It took about a decade, but the FIX protocol eventually became
the accepted practice for trade communications in equities trading.
Yet in the fixed-income world, despite the efforts of many firms
and the governing organization FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL), the
protocol has gained little ground. That is slowly changing as more
firms pay attention to implementing industry standards in their
post-trade processes.
FIX's challenge in bond trading has at least as much to do with
debt market practices as it does with any shortcomings in the
protocol. The trading is far less automated than in equities,
although electronic trading is making inroads, particularly through
the growing acceptance of multidealer platforms MarketAxess and
Thomson TradeWeb. Industry participants are starting to believe
that once FIX gets established in post-trade messaging, the
protocol will find its way into pre-trade and trade execution as
well. |
