Press Releases

Press Releases

Symphony Software Foundation Becomes FINOS, Expands Charter, Adds New Corporate Members

April 24, 2018

The Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) aims to be the leading arena for open innovation in financial services

NEW YORK, N.Y. (April 24, 2018) — The Symphony Software Foundation, a nonprofit organization promoting open innovation in financial services, announces its launch as the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS). The FINOS brand reflects the Foundation’s expanded mission of providing an independent forum for high-impact collaboration across the entire financial services community.

“We want to thank the Symphony Software Foundation for laying the groundwork for the creation of FINOS, which will go on to show that there is now real appetite for deploying open-source software, promoting innovation and interoperability standards in financial services,” said David Hudson, managing director and head of markets execution at J. P. Morgan.

“As a founding member of the Symphony Software Foundation, we are pleased to continue to support the organization’s work under the new FINOS brand and advance open source solutions and standards for the financial services industry,” said John Madsen, managing director and co-head of technology at Goldman Sachs.

“Open source software is helping advance technology faster than ever before, and we are excited to be part of an organization that is committed to bringing its benefits to financial services,” said Christopher McGuire, manager, user interface design and development at Citadel. “By fostering partnerships and advancing communications standards across our industry, FINOS will play a key role in supporting the next generation of financial innovations.”

In addition to its broadened charter and new brand, FINOS is announcing several new members, including new Platinum Members UBS, GitHub and Red Hat, new Gold Member Thomson Reuters and new Silver Member Nodesource.

"FINOS’ commitment to fostering open collaboration in the financial services sector will be crucial as financial technologies continue to evolve,” said Jason Warner, GitHub’s SVP of technology. “We're thrilled to be joining FINOS as a platinum member and to be serving our community of open source software developers who are building the tools that will power the future of finance.”

“As open source use has increased in banking technology, it is encouraging to see leading finance and technology companies come together to create open communities to help shape the next generation of financial institutions,” said Chris Wright, Red Hat’s vice president and chief technology officer. “Red Hat is proud to lead this movement with Red Hat OpenShift as a key underlying technology of the FINOS Open Developer Platform. We are excited to be at the forefront of the movement and to learn from and collaborate with our fellow foundation members.”

“Thomson Reuters is committed to promoting interoperability, collaboration and open standards that ultimately deliver value to our clients in the financial services industry,” said Debra Walton, managing director, Customer Proposition at Thomson Reuters. “We are pleased to be joining FINOS and look forward to working with them and other partners across the industry who are committed to the same standards.”

"IHS Markit is proud to be an active member of FINOS. Gabriele and his team have built a forum that will allow us to improve our infrastructure and unlock the potential of our engineering teams and products,” said Brad Levy, managing director, global head of loans at IHS Markit and CEO of MarkitSERV. “We are thrilled with the evolution of the Foundation and the increased velocity of innovation this thriving community will continue to drive."

"Symphony is proud to support the new vision and future projects and initiatives created by the FINOS community,” said Lawrence Miller, chief security officer of Symphony Communication Services LLC. “We look forward to seeing what the future holds; the entire industry will benefit from FINOS’ mission to drive innovation across financial services."

In addition to the initial set of programs, FINOS will continue to broaden its scope by adding new programs, members and contributors throughout the year. While fostering open source readiness for the industry, its focus will remain on driving technological collaboration around items such as standard data formats, interoperability and common platforms. FINOS will also host its second annual Open Source Strategy Forum in London this November.

“In the era of fintech platforms and decentralization, it’s time for this industry to embrace the strategic principles of open collaboration that have driven the most exciting innovations of the last decade,” said Gabriele Columbro, executive director of FINOS. “We are excited to have become a trusted independent forum for this growing movement, and we welcome new contributors to our community, which is based on the open source way but very much focused on the specific challenges and opportunities of financial services.”

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

Media Contact:
press@finos.org 
(646) 569-9895