The FDC3 Standard specifies protocols and taxonomies to enable applications in financial services workflows to interoperate in a plug-and-play fashion, without prior bi-lateral agreements between app developers.
Financial applications include any type of application used in common financial workflows, including:
- Containerized Web applications - Interoperability platforms extending Chromium (e.g. Electron, OpenFin, interop.io's io.Connect)
- PWAs & Web applications running in a commercial browser
- Traditional native applications implemented in C++, .NET, Java, Python, etc.
- Hybrid web/native applications - stand alone native apps embedding a WebView (e.g. Electron, CEF, WebView2, NW.js etc.)
- Common desktop applications not specific to finance, but critical to workflows - such as Excel, Outlook, Slack, etc.
This standards group is focused specifically on establishing and promoting standards for the interoperability of front-end applications, hence, its activities are focused on:
- The discovery, configuration, identity and use of financial services applications (e.g. the FDC3 App Directory),
- APIs for communication and interaction between applications (e.g. the Desktop Agent API and Agent Bridging API),
- Message formats used for communication (e.g. Context Data)
- Names for requested functionality and workflow steps (e.g. Intents)
- Creating and promoting tests for conformance to these standards (e.g. the FDC3 Conformance Framework) and training & certification programs that relate to them (e.g. Introduction to FDC3)
The group's activities do not include:
- Interoperability or communication between back-end platforms.
- Defining financial objects - where existing standards are well established and can be reused.
Any changes of Scope are not retroactive.