Fix Trading Community Announces TCA Standards

Developed by the Fix TCA Working Group, the guidelines are initially focused on a glossary of terms, with additional suggestions based on market segment for best practice.

TCA is widely used for varying purposes across both the buy and the sell sides, commonly on the former to evaluate broker performance. While this release is specifically for equities, given the widespread use of the process in that asset class, the working group eventually plans to expand to fixed income, foreign exchange and both futures and options, along with developing standards for the TCA data-collection aspect.

"While the initial focus has been the glossary of terms, we have also provided TCA perspectives based on market structure and industry segment," says Michael Napper, co-chair of the working group and a director and head of global client analytics technology at Credit Suisse. "Additionally, we have also taken the approach to recommend best practices where feasible while recognising some issues may never easily be standardised. Going forward, we will investigate the possibility of enhancing the Fix specification to facilitate the TCA data collection process."