OpenFin is leading an initiative to bring universal connectivity and standards to the desktop applications used across capital markets. The initiative is called the Financial Desktop Connectivity and Collaboration Consortium (FDC3) and initial members include Algomi, AllianceBernstein, Barclays, BNP Paribas, ChartIQ, Citadel, Cloud9, FactSet, Fidessa, GreenKey, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, OTAS Technologies, RBC, TP ICAP, Wellington Management Company and OpenFin.
The aim of FDC3 is to address the fractured software landscape of capital markets and deliver common software and standards across desktop applications used for trading, market data, order management, analytics and productivity to support faster decision making, improved productivity and streamlined workflow.
OpenFin, provider of an operating system created for financial markets and designed to be unifying and application agnostic, has contributed open source code to support the initiative. It is also open sourcing and making freely available its desktop connectivity technology, which is used by many large banks and buy-side and vendor firms, and providing a central app directory that will be freely accessible and allow applications to identify one another safely and securely.
Mazy Dar, CEO of OpenFin, says: “Today, the humans sitting at desktops are the integration layer between their applications. We believe the time has come to enable financial desktops with the same app interoperability that we take for granted on iOS and Android devices.”
Among the members of FDC3 commenting on the initiative, Bhupesh Vora, managing director, markets technology at Barclays, says: “Communicating and sharing context between multiple apps without the huge overhead of bespoke integration will be a massive boost to productivity for both the development community and ultimately our salespeople and traders. FDC3 will give us on the desktop what FIX gave us for server-side interoperability between venues and clients”.
Jim Adams, managing director, CIB technology at J.P. Morgan, comments: “Our corporate and investment banking staff can use anywhere between five and fifteen applications in their daily workflow. Interoperability would allow this workflow to become seamless across applications and platforms, ultimately making our employees more productive and informed when talking to internal and external clients.”
From a vendor perspective, Steve Grob, director of group strategy at Fidessa, says: “FDC3 aligns with our broader outreach to top-tier firms. In particular, the OpenFin messaging bus resonates with our own approach to provide customers with better levels of innovation and control. This is important because all banks need to move faster than ever before, but without breaking what they already have in place.”
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