Bloomberg Symbology Accepted by FINRA for Regulatory Reporting

NEW YORK — Bloomberg executives announced today that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the largest independent regulator for securities firms doing business in the United States, now recognizes Bloomberg Open Symbology (BSYM) for its Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE).

Bloomberg Open Symbology, or BSYM, gives financial firms, exchanges and data providers an alternative to using proprietary naming conventions, which typically come with costly and restrictive license agreements.

“Firms often have to license several proprietary symbologies in order to manage trading operations in multiple markets and across asset classes,” said Peter Warms, head of Bloomberg’s Open Symbology group. “BSYM is a robust, open and free-use alternative to proprietary libraries. Its ongoing adoption reflects the industry’s desire to maximize market connectivity and transparency, while facing the need to reduce costs.”

Broker-dealers that are registered with FINRA are required by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to report trades of corporate bonds and securitized products to the TRACE system in a mandated timeframe. The reportable bond-universe tracked by TRACE increased significantly in 2011 when it started accepting data related to asset and mortgage backed securities in addition to corporate and agency bond information.

The centerpiece of Bloomberg Open Symbology is the Bloomberg Global Identifier (BBGID), a 12-digit alphanumeric identifier that covers more than 75 million active and inactive securities globally. It is available free of licensing fees, restrictions or commercial terms and uses a standard methodology across all global asset classes. A BBGID is assigned instantly upon security set-up on the Bloomberg Professional® service, and once assigned it is non-changing and unique to the listing level. While Bloomberg’s market data and trading applications use BSYM, the methodology can be used for any purpose and incorporated into any vendor’s system now, and in the future.

For more information about Bloomberg’s Open Symbology please visit Bloomberg’s Open Market Data Initiative homepage at http://open.bloomberg.com or contact Peter Warms at +609-279- 3478 or bsym@bloomberg.net.

About Bloomberg:

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength — delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately – is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional® service, which provides real time financial information to more than 310,000 subscribers globally. Bloomberg’s enterprise solutions build on the company’s core strength, leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively.

Media Contacts:

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