FPL Launches Inter-Party Latency Working Group

FPL - FIX Protocol Ltd. - is launching the FIX Inter-party Latency (FIPL) Working Group, according to an email sent to its membership. The group's mission is to "develop a standard that will allow the easy assembly of this information on a consistent basis across multiple organisations so that firms can develop a better understanding of where latency hot spots exist and how they can address them."

Heading up the group, at least initially, are Henry Young, a director at London-based TS-Associates and Nicholas Morrison, head of market data and middleware technology at Nomura Europe. Activities are expected to kick off in mid January, with initial tasks determined as:

- The standardisation of latency measurement terminology and semantics.
- The standardisation of inter-party latency measurement interoperability services.
- The development of a FIPL Protocol for the interoperation of latency measurement solutions.
- The promotion of FIPL amongst the trading venues, financial institutions and solution vendor community.

FIPL's success as a standard will depend not only on how quickly working group members can create a workable standards specification, but also on its adoption by the latency monitoring vendor community.

TS-A, Corvil and Correlix have all developed inter-party latency services based on proprietary protocols, and while TS-A is looking to embrace any new FIPL standard, it's unclear whether others will see the commercial benefits of so doing, given the attraction of locking in customers to their own offerings. Customer pressure, too, then may play a key role in its adoption.