The International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication (ISITC) has released a new market practice for over-the-counter derivatives based around the Financial products Mark-up Language (FpML).
The ISITC's OTC Derivatives Working Group released The Market Practice - OTC Trade Notification this week. It aims to address the growing problem of dealing with increasing OTC trading volumes. Industry groups, from the FpML committees to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) have been working to introduce standardise trade notifications to the OTC derivatives market for some time.
The Market Practice focuses on communications related to contract notifications sent from Investment Managers to third party providers including: custodians, accounting agents and prime brokers. The standards include adopting the use of FpML tags for communication and information used in message formats.
Notifications covered by the Market Practice are:
· Initiation
· Increase
· Novation
· Amendment
· Termination
The OTC Trade Notification Market Practice spent two years in development at the ISITC's OTC Derivatives Working Group. Also involved in the development of the Practice, was the Asset Managers Forum and the FpML protocol group, which is administered by ISDA. It covers the contract lifecycle events-related notifications. Market participants will be able to receive swaps electronically in a consistent format.
These notifications allow third parties to offer services, such as settlement, accounting, valuation and reconciliation.