Open Symbology Adopted as OMG Global Identifier Standard!

On September 15, the financial services industry came one step closer to embracing a system for naming financial securities that is non-proprietary, offers broad coverage and is universally available without restrictive license terms and fees.

Board members of the Object Management Group (OMG), a not-for-profit technology standards consortium, unanimously voted to adopt the Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI) specification as standard methodology for identifying financial instruments.

The methodology behind the FIGI is based on Bloomberg's Open Symbology, or BSYM, a system Bloomberg developed for identifying securities across all global asset classes. BSYM provides a library of 200 million unique identifiers, called BBGIDs, which are assigned to financial instruments such as equities, fixed income, indices, derivatives, currency and structured products. The BBGID is a comprehensive, open and unchanging identifier that has helped financial market participants, third-party data providers, exchanges, governments, settlement agencies and regulators improve connectivity, interoperability, transparency, and efficiency in the financial market place.

Now that the OMG has adopted FIGI as a standard, the BBGID is now known as the FIGI, but the way the system works and its benefit to the market place is still the same. Stripping the BBGID of the Bloomberg name allows for a neutral, generic standard that avoids the branding issue.

Bloomberg will continuously build, update, and administer FIGI identifiers to ensure their accuracy and effectiveness - but we also welcome the opportunity to help companies, exchanges and 3rd parties integrate FIGI into their databases.

Adopting an open system of shared symbology establishes the foundation for a tremendous leap forward in the efficient trade and settlement of securities. The adoption of the FIGI will enable firms and technology service providers to shift resources from laborious, inefficient processes to new investments in tools and products that will better serve organizations of all kinds.

Bloomberg consistently evolves its technology to complement the dynamic needs of our clients. After listening to our clients feedback regarding the cost of proprietary identifiers, in 2009 we decided to make our symbology freely available to market participants without restrictive license terms and fees. Proposing BSYM as a framework for an open standard, the FIGI, is part of Bloomberg's ongoing commitment to support tools and solutions that aid interoperability and integration of the thousands of enterprise systems and software platforms in use across the industry.

The FIGI specification is available on the OMG's website here. OMG standards are available to the public free of charge.

Open Symbology Adopted as OMG Global Identifier Standard PDF: click here.