The International Securities Lending Association (ISLA), International Capital Market Association (ICMA) and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) have announced the appointment of FINOS to “provide a repository, with a view to fostering the growth of an open-source community for the Common Domain Model (CDM).”
In May 2022, the associations invited potential host organizations “to provide a service proposal to meet the requirements of providing such a repository for the open-source CDM, which establishes a single, common digital representation of trade events and actions across the lifecycle of financial products.”
The requirements “included maintenance of the CDM code, facilitating the growth of a
community to contribute to the development of the CDM, allowing for governance of the
contributions to be overseen by the associations, and assisting in building awareness of the CDM.” The appointment of FINOS will “advance the development and increase the speed of adoption and distribution of the CDM, with a view to migrate to FINOS by the start of 2023.”
The model will then be “distributed on an Apache license-standard for open-source software.”
The associations will then proceed to “announce once migration is complete and describe how institutions can contribute when it occurs.”
Contributions are “encouraged by either contacting the associations or visiting the portal website.”
Andrew Dyson, Chief Executive Officer, ISLA, said:
“Fostering an open-source community through FINOS’s global reach and resourcing will ensure faster development and convergence on standards. Appointing FINOS moves forward the long-term strategy agreed on by the associations in our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), and importantly should ensure acceleration of adoption. I look forward to working with the FINOS team and the other associations on the migration.”
Bryan Pascoe, ICMA’s Chief Executive, added:
“The collaboration with FINOS marks a milestone in promoting open and common standards across financial markets. The CDM, as a cross-industry initiative, plays a key role in supporting the digital transformation of capital markets, fostering interoperability and cohesiveness through FINOS’s open- source framework.”
Scott O’Malia, ISDA’s Chief Executive, shared:
“Having a completely transparent, open-source CDM maintained by FINOS and supported by three trade associations will help accelerate adoption, bringing greater consistency across derivatives, repo and securities lending. It will also avoid fragmentation of standards and duplication of effort across the industry.”
Jane Gavronsky, Chief Technology Officer of FINOS, said:
“We are thrilled to have been selected to host the Common Domain Model as a FINOS open standard project, and grow the open-source community around it. An open, standard representation of transactions and events will bring many benefits to the industry, and will significantly advance the much-needed data and process interoperability across the business lifecycle.”