The People's Bank of China ("PBC") has recently issued two industry standards for the financial sector which are the Interbank Market Metadata and the Interbank Market Information Exchange Protocol. Both standards have taken effect immediately from the date of issuance.
The Interbank Market Metadata provides for identifications, names, instructions and other relevant particulars, of data elements involved in business activities carried out in the interbank market, and covers work at the front, middle and back stages of the forex market, the currency market and the derivative market and work at the front and middle stages of the bond market, excluding the clearing and settlement at the back stage of the bond market. Compared to the previous version, the Interbank Market Metadata introduces the following changes. First, the formats in which data elements are presented are modified, and data elements are revised to be categorized into "Text", "Value", "Date" and "Time". Second, according to increasingly diversified business scenarios and products in the interbank market, data element items are re-classified into six groups which are "Participants", "Products", "Events", "Public Data", "Conditions" and "Risk Control". Third, a selected range of data elements related to core business are defined, and an improvement is made to data elements specified in the previous standard.