Project Updates: Financial Objects: Product Control Common Template

There is a lot happening within our SIGs and Projects, and we want to highlight some, including Financial Objects.

In January 2021, The FO SIG proposed and launched two projects: the Commodities Payout and the Product Control Common Template. It became evident that after the launch of the two working streams, there were overarching, common elements to these work streams (modeling financial objects, using Legend & the FINOS hosted Legend Studio instance, and leveraging the ISDA CDM); every workstream has specific requirements that warrant separate governance structures.

For the Product Control Common Template, the project maintainers define the project in three steps: 

1. To construct a common template data model using Legend Studio (an approved open-sourced data modeling tool that allows users to create a data model in a graphical user interface).
2. This common template data model will include all the attributes required by each vendor to run their valuation process and return the consensus data to the banks.
3. Banks can connect their daily pricing data to the industry-approved model for submission, and the vendor can leverage the same model to provide the consensus data. Thereby, both the banks and vendors will communicate in the same common model language.

The vision for the Product Control Common Template project is to standardize the data exchange process between banks and vendors by setting up an industry-approved common template and linking them via Model to Model mapping in the Legend instance. This will reduce friction, promote data standardization, and reduce bank onboarding costs in the consensus pricing industry.

To help the Product Control Common Template move into its next round of development, we are looking for more participants to test sample data using the linked guidelines and sample template from Legend. The open source data model and template standardize how consensus-based pricing information is shared across the industry and is ready to be tested. 

This modeling initiative goal will help address regulators' concerns about dependency on a single service provider providing a resolution to disruption risk.

To help us validate the results, the tester will need a Gitlab account, a local developer drive activated (e.g., H:\ drive), and Java/Maven installed in your local drive to start testing. All other steps are detailed in the linked guide above. 

As a token of appreciation for helping us validate the results, FINOS will be awarding the first three submissions with complimentary registration to attend the FINOS Open Source in Finance Forum New York on December 8th. 

Get involved with Legend and the Product Control Common Template:

If you're interested in contributing to Financial Objects data models on the FINOS hosted instance of Legend Studio, please submit your interest at finos.org/legend and you will be granted "read-only" access to view models.

Editing and creating models in Legend Studio is enabled once a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) is signed by your organization. Please see the Contribution Compliance Requirements and email help@finos.org with questions.

For more info, checkout the project README.

Other projects to get involved with: 

• Is your bank developing AI/ML projects suitable for FINOS collaboration? Then, connect with the KDB+ Project where Alvin Shih, Morgan Stanley Senior Machine Learning Researcher, wants to hear from you! Drop a GitHub comment as AI/ML gains momentum!
  
  
• Keep an eye on Morphir and This Week at FINOS as the FINOS project announces a new twice monthly project call. An absolute must for banks wanting to write business logic once that’s used everywhere! Learn more about Morphir here.  
  
  
• Learn how to Develop Secure Open Source Software for FREE with OpenSSF and FINOS. The course is entirely online and you can go at your own pace. Pass the final exam and earn a FREE certificate of completion! Get FINOS learning here!
  
  
• Does your bank track, visualize and define its enterprise technology landscape from a central point of reference? Use Waltz as version 1.44 releases report grid and diagram support for attestations! Check out the Waltz public instance here.