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TRAX is a success story. Since its launch in 1989, the OTC bond
trade matching and reporting system run by the International Capital
Market Association (ICMA) has built up a solid user base of over
200 financial institutions. But this year a big change is coming.
TRAX2, the ICMA's completely redesigned successor product, has
been running live, in parallel with the original system, since June
2006.
The new service has plenty of features designed to entice firms
into using it as soon as possible: it supports a much wider range
of instruments - including Repo, which went live in August 2006
- and promises to be fully compliant with the transaction reporting
requirements of MiFID, the EU's Markets in Financial Instruments
Directive.
But now migration is a must. In September 2007 TRAX will
be switched off.
Most firms have interfaced their back-office systems to the TRAX
gateway using its simple proprietary fixed-position messages. The
interface with TRAX2 however requires the use of much more complex
ISO 15022 (or ISO 20022) messages - which incidentally are not identical
to, or compatible with, SWIFT FIN's ISO 15022 messages.
And they are not just individually more complex - each one replaces
what were formerly several separate messages - for example the new
TX518 Trade Confirmation replaces not only the old 619 message (Trade
Entry) but also the 622 (Amend), the 628 (Cancel) and the 631 (Denial).
The same applies to the responses coming back from TRAX Central.
The new standards also require more data to be provided - especially
for those brokers looking to use 'extended matching', which makes
the entry of fields such as Settlement Amount, Place of Settlement
and others mandatory. Extended matching is optional for bond trades,
but mandatory for all repo trade matching.
So in short the old back-office messages need to be both transformed
and enriched in order to become valid TRAX2 messages.
Trace Financial can help.
Transformer, our flagship product, is a Java based data dictionary
transformation tool used by tier one financial organisations with
complex messaging requirements. Its powerful toolset and highly
intuitive GUI enable the development of even complex transformations
in a fraction of the time traditionally required. We can supply
all of the message definitions you'll need - both TRAX and TRAX2
- as pre-built libraries, ready to use straight away. Transformer
can also interface with a wide range of databases, both to translate
data values, and add extra data such as settlement instruction details
to messages.
Perhaps that's why the ICMA itself has not only approved Trace
as an Independent Software Vendor, but also used Transformer extensively
itself, to test TRAX2 - in December 2005 Richard Woodward, Head
of Software Development at ICMA said:
"The in-built testing capabilities of Transformer have allowed
us to validate the integrity of new message formats in our new
TRAX2 product much more quickly, and with greater confidence,
than would have been possible with our own manual efforts. By
using Transformer we were able to develop rapidly the ISO data
dictionary which has enabled our business analysts and Quality
Assurance team to create and comprehensively test financial message
transformations. The dictionary based approach enforces a structured
method to message construction and ensures consistency. It also
facilitates the re-use of data content throughout a transaction
flow. This in turn will ease the transition to the new standard
for our user-base."
So if you are looking for a faster, smoother migration to TRAX2,
contact us today:
To find out more or to arrange a demonstration contact
us >>
For more information on our financial messaging product
range, please visit our Products
Overview page >>
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