One area of major focus for the SROs is how industry data (particularly order types/handling instructions) should be normalized.

The SROs have been discussing, and have put together two approaches, which is described below in Options 1 and Options 2. The SROs would like to understand the perspective of the industry on these potential approaches, and so are reaching out to FIF to get its perspective.

Please select one of the two options below as your firm’s preference for normalizing industry data, particularly order types/handling instructions. Providing the rationale for your choice in the box below, especially if Option 2 is selected, would be most helpful.

This survey is anonymous and all feedback to the SROs will be without attribution.

Please respond by January 23  so that we can provide the FIF feedback to the SROs request in a timely manner.

Thank you.

Question Title

* Option 1

  • Initial Specification to include all existing OATS special handling codes and other fields and values necessary to allow a mapping between OATS and CAT.
  • No free form text fields would be allowed for any terms and conditions of an order.
  • As new trading scenarios evolve that may require additional standard values, firms would call the CAT Help Desk to discuss and request a new value if needed.  The CAT Help Desk would provide guidance on which existing values should be used until a new standard value could be added.
  • A free form text field could be provided for firm use only that could not contain any information about the terms and conditions of the order.  The field would be similar to the existing ROE Memo Field in OATS.  This field would not be used by regulators in automated surveillance.

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* Please include any additional information or comments about why you selected option 1.

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* Option 2

  • Initial specification to include all existing OATS special handling codes in the order handling and routing instructions fields but the CAT specification may capture order attributes and information in different fields than the existing OATS specification (e.g., what is a Special Handling Instruction in OATS may be captured as an Order Type in the CAT specification)
  • A voluntary free form text field would be available to include additional order instructions not covered by any standard values.  There would be no validation on this field by the CAT Processor.  Each firm would have to determine on its own whether use of this field would be appropriate.
  • Regulators would have to contact firms using the free form text field to determine what the field means for each firm. 
  • The free form text field would not be used by regulators in automated surveillance.

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* Please include any additional information or comments about why you selected option 2.

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* Please include any additional information regarding why you selected option 1 or option 2 that you believe the SROs should consider when selecting the approach.

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