CBOT's Order Routing Application
Program Interface (API) Is Ready

The Chicago Board of Trade's Order Routing Application Interface (API) is now ready for all futures commission merchants, opening an exciting advancement in the growth of electronic order routing.

What, exactly, does an API accomplish? Simply stated, it allows two computer applications to "read" and respond to each other's messages. A special programming link does not have to be built, greatly reducing cost and time to achieve an interface.

API provides the user an actual software library rather than a specific messaging protocol with three significant benefits:

1. FCMs do not have to write communications software for each of their systems.
2. The FCM becomes immune to he complexity and changes to the exchange's messaging protocol; so, if changes are made to the Order Routing protocol, the FCM is required to do little or nothing to maintain the interface.
3. It provides "off-the-shelf" inter-operability among applications that use the APL.

 The CBOT and Chicago Mercantile Exchange now have jointly created and Order Routing API that allows FCMs and other electronically to TOPS (Trade Order Processing System) Route-from their own computer systems.

At the CBOT, those orders can be sent to a printer on the floor or a broker's Electronic Clerk (EC) device in the trading pit (CBOT orders routed directly to an EC currently can be no larger than ten contracts). The entire range of electronic order routing capabilities is then available, ranging through initial order entry and routing, electronic time-stamping, quantity and price for confirmation, and with orders that are sent directly to a broker's EC, electronic endorsements that go automatically to the FCM's record-keeping system and then to the Board of Trade Clearing Corporation.

This API is only the beginning. The CBOT and the CME see this as the precursor to a number of interfaces that will become available under a Common Message Switch that will be adopted as the industry standard. The CBOT and the CME are enlisting software vendors and consultants to adopt the API. So, if you use a vendor, ask if he will supply the Order Routing API as an add-on to the vendor's system.

For more information or the tools to get started on API, call Grace Eremin at 1-312-435-7211 in the CBOT Market and Product Development Department. The technical contact at the CBOT is Dolores Panek at 1-312-435-3735. 

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