Program Seeks to Promote Open Collaboration for Technology and Tools Supporting Common Uses of Data Across Financial Services

November 8, 2018, New York, NY --- FINOS (the Fintech Open Source Foundation) today announced a public call for contributions to projects and working groups in support of the foundation's public launch of its new Data Technologies program.

The purpose of the Data Technologies ("DT") program is to promote open collaboration for technology and tools that support common uses of data across the full lifecycle of financial services, including but not limited to: data acquisition, storage, governance, processing, and distribution. The program has an active working group initially aiming to standardize and enhance use of kdb+ software and is expected to ultimately extend to other areas such as Hadoop-based time series solutions, projects related to Apache Spark, graph database technologies, data analytics libraries, and various governance tools. The DT Program has also recently approved a second working group, Security Reference Data, which will focus on curating reference data standards, structures, and symbology, facilitating collaborative development of a common set of securities reference data.  FINOS members driving this DT program include Morgan Stanley, Citi, J.P. Morgan, Nomura, and Goldman Sachs.

“Many of the major challenges in Fintech revolve around the ingesting, managing, and analysis of data that regularly sees order-of-magnitude increases in quantity and variety. FINOS opens the door for industry-specific code and standards to be shared, resulting in better solutions for our clients," said Alvin Shih, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley and the program’s Project Management Committee (PMC) lead. "DT seeks participants who not only understand the interplay between scale, complexity, and the regulated industry they operate in, but also recognize how transformational open source can be.”

Use cases for the DT program include developing a library of loading modules and/or package managers to drastically reduce the time to implement kdb+ libraries, as well as providing standard logging and security tools to be used with kdb+ data rather than building them independently. Common standards, tools, and libraries are expected to improve usability and administration of kdb+ software in enterprise deployments.  

"Currently, the Data Technologies program is actively seeking additional participants, contributors, as well as new open source contributions. FINOS is eager to bring the Data Technologies program to our member companies and we extend an invitation for others to join," said Rob Underwood, Director of Programs at FINOS.

"With our focus on kdb+ and reference data as a beginning, our DT program seeks to improve and standardize how leading financial organizations use and access data," added Tosha Ellison, Director of Member Success at FINOS. "Standardization is crucial to success in the financial services industry, and we aim to give our members, some of the world’s top banks, the opportunity to improve and enhance how they do business with the help of this newly launched program."

This Data Technologies program launch is the first in a series of announcements expected around the upcoming Open Source Strategy Forum, taking place November 14-15 in London. To participate in the Data Technologies program, please email the program participants at data-tech@finos.org.

This news follows the expanded contribution from GreenKey Technologies to the FINOS Voice Program as well as a call for contribution to three other FINOS programs including Open Source Readiness ("OSR"), FinServ Developer Experience ("FDX"), and Financial Objects (“FO”).

About Morgan Stanley:

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in more than 41 countries, the Firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. For more information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.

About FINOS:

The Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) is an independent nonprofit organization focused on promoting open innovation during a period of unprecedented technological transformation within financial services. FINOS believes that organizations that embrace open source software development and common standards will be best positioned to capture the growth opportunities presented by this transformation. The Foundation offers an Open Developer Platform (ODP), a compliant Open Source Readiness Program and The Open Source Strategy Forum (OSSF), the leading global event for financial executives and technologists dedicated to open innovation. Foundation OSS Projects are Apache 2.0 licensed and available on GitHub. For more information, visit www.finos.org.

Media Contact:

Grace Keith

Caliber Corporate Advisers

grace.keith@calibercorporate.com

202-294-2529

Source: FINOS