Data describing financial instruments are often complex, incomplete, and incompatible. These weaknesses impede companies and investors in managing their risk, and regulators in overseeing firms, markets, and the financial system as a whole. The first phase of the Financial Instrument Reference Database establishes a set of granular data elements that are the basis for describing financial instruments. This foundational component is a data dictionary that leverages the ISO 20022 international standard for the development of financial messages, data elements of the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) Protocol and the data dictionary provided by the ACTUS Financial Research Foundation. Future phases of the multiyear rollout of the Financial Instrument Reference Database will build on this foundation. The Financial Instrument Reference Database provides the terms and definitions for five asset classes: Equity, Debt, Option, Warrant, and Future. Within the ACTUS Algorithmic Financial Contract Standard, the ACTUS Data Dictionary and the ACTUS Algorithms represent financial instruments by their contractual cash flow obligations.
The Financial Instrument Reference Database simplifies access to, and understanding of, the granular financial instrument data in ISO 20022, FIX Protocol and the ACTUS Financial Research Foundation's Algorithmic Financial Contract Standard. It makes the text searchable and the relationships and properties clear. The current content forms a foundation to which the public sector and private sector can begin to align financial instrument data. The Financial Instrument Reference Database is positioned to remain current and grow with evolving industry data standards.