Fix and FpML: a friendly war

Messaging standards Fix and FpML have different strengths and used to do separate things, but swap market reforms have raised questions as to whether one could usurp the other. The outcome has been collaboration as well as competition. Peter Madigan reports

Fix and FpML: collaboration meets competition

For most of their existence, the over-the-counter derivatives market's two standardised trading languages have been able to rub along quite nicely. Financial products markup language (FpML) – the junior of the two – was invented as a medium for the more complex messages required in the post-trade environment, while financial information exchange (Fix) conveys order information for a variety of products and asset classes. In other words, they served very different parts of the trade life cycle.

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