What is FDC3? An overview
The goal of FDC3 (Financial Desktop Connectivity and Collaboration Consortium) is to provide universal connectivity and standards for all desktop applications for the finance industry. Think of the standards (referred to as FDC3 standards or simply FDC3) as a common language for financial applications to be able to communicate with each other. By use of this common language, FDC3 enables faster decision-making, improves productivity, and streamlines workflows through interoperability of desktop applications.
In October 2017, Finsemble (along with over twenty banks and capital markets solution providers) joined together to create the FDC3 working group. Much like the now ubiquitous Financial Information eXchange (FIX®) standard, the goal was to create vendor-neutral standards to achieve connectivity and foster choice—specifically across applications on the desktop. To this day, FDC3 standards are owned, maintained and developed through the collaborative efforts of the FDC3 community—40+ members that include the major smart desktop platforms (such as Finsemble), application vendors, and many buy- and sell-side firms. Since 2018, FDC3 has resided within FINOS—the Fintech Open Source Foundation.
Without guidelines, how can financial applications from thousands of different vendors learn to communicate? Enter FDC3. A community of professionals — banks, buy-sides, and fintechs — working together to solve this problem.
Read more about Finsemble joining FDC3In the same way that FIX created a common protocol for server-side communication between systems, FDC3 would enable desktop applications to communicate with each other via a common protocol.
Check out TABB Forum article from April 2021
The Fabric of Capital Markets: How FDC3 Standards Mirror the FIX Path to Ubiquity
FDC3 2.0 brings new life to the standard
FDC3 makes it’s clear that the standard is now a mainstay for workflows across financial desktops. Nearly every update to the standard came from the FDC3 community. In this blog post, see what’s new in FDC3 2.0, such as updates to FDC3 appD and new API transactions.
FDC3 Desktop Agent API
The foundation of FDC3 is the desktop agent API (Application Programming Interface), which is a single interface that any application developer can write to (whether it’s an in-house built app or a vendor application) in order to add interoperability to their application. Think about the FDC3 API as an agreement between existing platforms and applications. It’s a consistent interface for developers working with FDC3.
The landscape of application interconnectivity is evolving right before our eyes. In the background, is FDC3.
On the road to better user experiences, having access to an open API for interoperability is the first step, learning how to use it is the second. The team at Finsemble is always ready to support you on that journey. We provide a high-quality solutions engineering service to our clients and partners, ready to provide guidance on how best to integrate interoperability into their applications and how best to leverage it within their smart desktops.
EdX Course—FDC3: Interoperability for the Financial Desktop
Learn about the vision and key concepts of FDC3, the benefits it provides, and how workflow-driven design makes it easy to get started with FDC3 in this (free!) EDX course brought to you by Adaptive Financial Consulting and The Linux Foundation.
Register nowFDC3 in the Wild
Many firms are becoming familiar with the universal open-source FDC3 standard and understand how it is integral to interoperability between financial applications. However, firms may not be aware of real world use cases that are being solved for today. In this presentation, we discuss how FDC3 is used in the wild, with special guest Symphony to discuss how FDC3-connected applications have helped to solve their end user pain points.
- See workflows live action workflows presented by Symphony
- Hear from Chief Product Officer Eugene Sorenson how clients are embracing the standard
- Understand how, as an application provider, you can benefit from becoming FDC3-enabled to help your clients
Whats new with FDC3 2.0
The FDC3 2.0 release is the first major revision to the Standard since the v1.0 release in 2019 and there are many new developments to share. In this presentation, FDC3 experts and Lead-maintainer Kris West walks you through some of the most recent additions and how they help FDC3 adopters to both tackle new use-cases and improve on existing ones.
They’ll be presenting an overview of:
- How FDC3 has evolved from context sharing and intents to supporting complex workflows with transactions and feeds
- New Intents (actions) and Context definitions supporting real-world workflows
- The new app directory standard, enabling vendors and firms to publish their apps to run on any Desktop Agent
- The new and improved Standards portal website
- What’s next for FDC3
Fast-track to interoperability
Finsemble is the industry’s first no-code smart desktop platform. In under an hour, clients can assemble any type of application into shareable, publishable workspaces. This means your Innovation Officer, Head of Product, or any business user can build a smart desktop without developer support.
- Point and click Smart Desktop Designer GUI expedites application integration, UX design, and security
- Assemble, customize and deploy into production a complete smart desktop in under an hour
- FDC3-enabled applications can interoperate out-of-the-box
- Save development resources and see faster time to market
FDC3 for Vendors
As an OMS/EMS provider, you are at the center of workflow on your clients’ desktop. Interoperability makes it possible to become more than the center: it allows you to become the hub that drives all workflows.
Become an interoperability hub with Finsemble
Vendor partner sets new status quo
Plug-and-play desktop interoperability is here, and market intelligence platform Aiera proves it. With the Finsemble Smart Desktop Designer and FDC3 Workbench, “In under an hour we had our application and components tested and FDC3-compliant,” says Ken Sena, Aiera CEO.
Read partnership press release
FAQs and resources
FDC3 is gaining traction as a practical approach to desktop connectivity. As a result, many people want to learn it, but aren’t sure where to start. We at Finsemble are committed to FDC3, and want you to be successful. Here are some FDC3 resources and learnings that can help you get going.
Check out Waterstechnology.com article from August 2022
The Power of FDC3 AppD: A Universal Standard to Distribute and Discover Applications
Context data and intents: the core standards of FDC3
In any multi-step workflow, there are actions and responses to actions. These actions are composed of data context and intents—the core of FDC3. An easy way to think about context is “nouns” such as ticker symbol. Intents can be thought of as an action, such as open a chart. In this post, we’ll break down two key specifications of FDC3 to give them a closer look.
What does FDC3 look like?
When you are thinking about getting applications to talk to each other, what do they need to do? The first thing to find out is if FDC3 is supported. Finsemble fully supports any FDC3 API. For more developer information, check out developer details here.
Advanced workflows with FDC3 and Finsemble
The FDC3 specification is focused on context data, intents, and directory of applications that can handle context and intents. Passing a message (context data) and an action request (an intent) is certainly powerful, and enables synchronization of context (all of your apps updating at the same time) and launching an app with context. Real-world workflows like responding to an RFQ, handling a trade break, or doing pre-trade analysis require many more steps, dependencies between applications, and state management.
FDC3 is necessary, but not sufficient to enable these kinds of real-world use cases. As the standard evolves, it will continue to grow and support more complex workflows. But the reality for now and likely into the future is that extending beyond the standard is critical. As you look to build or buy a desktop interoperability platform, this is a key consideration – mapping out target workflows and identifying critical capabilities required to enable them.
Visit our workflows overview page
The Essential Guide to FDC3
Get to know the standards that pave the road to interoperability.
Download The Essential Guide to FDC3 to learn:
- What FDC3 is and what its goals are.
- Why FDC3 matters so much for the future of the financial smart desktop.
- FDC3 basics, including API, context, intents, and application directory.
- How FDC3 is at the heart of interoperability, but is by no means a complete solution.
Plugging in with FDC3
How to boost your application usage and become an integral part of trader workflow
This whitepaper aims to provide guidance around the following:
- Open Standard, Open Market: What is FDC3, what an FDC3 environment actually looks like, and why FDC3 is being embraced
- Hubs and Spokes: What’s required to get value from an FDC3-enabled environment as a best-of-breed point solution or a major vendor
- Plugging In: How, why, and when to become involved as a vendor