Financial Information Exchange (FIX) is a vendor-neutral electronic communications protocol for the international real-time exchange of securities transaction information. FIX was developed in the mid 1980s to provide a standard means of exchanging financial market data between trading systems. The original goal was to create a protocol that would allow customers to use existing technology, such as their trading systems, to access and exchange data reliably across any country or trading system.The original FIX version was limited to parties in a two-way conversation. A more recent version of the FIX protocol has been extended to meet the needs of today's market participants, including receiving data from multiple sources on multiple platforms over multiple networks with no restrictions on where the sender and receiver may be located. FIX can be used for single stock, simultaneous or scheduled quotes and trades, as well as for liquidated or contingent trades within orders for securities.By using FIX, companies can transfer trading data between their systems and brokerages in a secure, vendor-neutral format. This protocol, developed by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and implemented by the Electronic Communications Network (ECN), guarantees the integrity of the data transferred. This electronic messaging system might be used to transmit securities transaction related information for the purpose of processing securities transactions through the automated trading systems.FIX is the financial information network of the world's leading securities exchanges and clearing houses. It has proved to be a reliable, flexible and interoperable solution that can be used to deliver transactions in the financial markets. This advanced solution enables real-time transmission of transaction data between systems and end users, as well as off-line access to information that can be used in other ways.
