25 Sept. 2001: TWIST Publish Version 2.0 FX Trading Specification

The Treasury Workstation Integration Standards Team (TWIST) consortium has released a second version of its proposed treasury system interface standard, which utilises XML standards, and has signed up two new members to its organization.

The new release, following the initial May launch, incorporates detailed instructions for foreign exchange trading, including trade and settlement confirmation, new trades, collections of trades, amendments, cancellations, allocations, rolls, aggregations, and split settlements.

Tom Buschman, treasury development manager for Shell Treasury Centre, comments: "The extended version of the standard allows all market participants to achieve operational efficiencies, improved controls, and cost savings through interoperability based on an open set of standards."

Twist, a group of 13 financial organizations led by the treasury operations department of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, says that several of its members are already using its interface standard.

The group is working with the Financial products Markup Language (FpML) FX Products Working Group to encourage straight through processing between corporate treasury systems and foreign exchange (FX) trading platforms. Twist is also now working with the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) to promote harmonisation of emerging standards.

Its new members, bringing the total up to 15, are Reuters and STP solutions provider tapX.