The R&D Behind OpenFIGI.com

Recently Bloomberg announced the launch of the OpenFIGI website to facilitate adoption of the free to use, open source Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI). I sat down with part of the Bloomberg Princeton R&D team that developed this web site to get their perspective on this game changing innovation in the world of financial instrument symbology. Here’s what the Web Services Team Lead Jordan Osecki and Senior Software Developer Shaopeng Zhang had to say…

Q: Can you explain FIGI? What is it, and what benefits does FIGI provide to the institutions that use it?
Shaopeng: The Financial Instrument Global Identifier is an established global standard issued under the guidelines of the Object Management Group (OMG). It is a 12 character, alphanumeric, randomly generated ID that potentially identifies over 300 trillion active and inactive instruments.

FIGI closes the gap in existing symbology systems. It provides coverage across all global asset classes, real-time availability, and flexibility for use in multiple functions. Firms are able to tie together disparate and fragmented symbologies, eliminate redundant mapping processes, streamline the trade workflow and reduce operational risk. FIGI also fills in the gap for asset classes that do not normally have a global identifier, including loans, futures and options.

Q: Where does OpenFIGI fit in? What benefits does the website provide?
Jordan: Now that FIGI is an open standard recognized by OMG and in the process of being adopted by other standards organizations, it was vital to have a website which allows everyone in the world to learn more about FIGI, to request FIGI identifiers, to search on existing instruments, and to map their database from whatever identifier they currently use as their primary key to the FIGI. This helps to spread the word about FIGI's benefits, and it provides the practical tools needed for any organization that wants to switch to use FIGIs instead of the existing identifiers in the market, which all have their own weaknesses.

Q: Tell me about the technologies that were used to build OpenFIGI and what drove the selection of those technologies. 

Shaopeng: With an "open" mind right from the beginning, we looked at some of the latest and greatest technologies the open source community offers, including but not limited to Node.js, Angular.js, HTML5, Bootstrap, etc.

We use NPM and Bower to manage our dependencies. During development, we use gulp and its various plugins to streamline our build process. A couple of simple commands like 'npm install' and 'gulp install' will set up the whole website.

Our user interface implements rich interactions to enhance the user experience, while closely binding to the data model utilizing the power of Angular.js. Working along talented designers, we created a custom build of Bootstrap to provide an elegant and responsive UI.

Various components are spread between front end and back end to provide optimized performance, while functioning in an isomorphic way.

As part of our effort to give back to the community, our OpenFIGI API is set to provide accurate and reliable data at no cost.

Q: What's next for OpenFIGI?
Jordan: The biggest update on the horizon includes adding more product types on the website that can be requested to get a FIGI. Keep an eye out for a few larger asset classes supported in 2016. We will also be looking to deliver more feature rich content faster in the form of more timely blog and news postings, and providing additional information and content on organizations which are helping us by acting as facilitators and promoters of the FIGI. Finally, we will be looking at several enhancements to our build and continuous integration processes, and are always looking for ways to improve the monitoring, alerting, and analytics of the website both for technical and business purposes.

To apply for Bloomberg’s 2016 Software Engineer training program in Princeton, NJ click here.

To apply for Senior Developer positions with Bloomberg Princeton R&D click here.

About The Author
Michael Miller manages the Web & Community Data Technology R&D teams for Bloomberg in Princeton, NJ. Michael writes about Management, Leadership and Technology. To view more of his posts click here.