OATS Technical Specifications

The OATS Reporting Technical Specifications document covers the requirements and procedures for clock synchronization; system access requirements for supplying OATS files to FINRA; order reporting scenarios that describe, from a business perspective, responsibilities for reporting to OATS; details regarding the required layout of OATS files; procedures for providing corrections to OATS data and for receiving feedback from FINRA; and the procedures for registration, self administration, and testing and certification. It also contains a data dictionary that describes all of the data elements in OATS files; a list of report formats, including field names, data types, and lists of permissible values; examples of order reports; and a glossary.

 

The OATS Reporting Technical Specifications is not intended to provide information about how to develop an electronic system that reports order information; it is only intended to describe what such a system must deliver to FINRA.

 

FINRA released a new edition of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications dated April 16, 2012. This version of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications contains a new Unmatched Reason Code in Appendix B related to Exchange Routes that OATS was unable to match to the related order in a NASDAQ or NYSE exchange because the Connection ID on the OATS Route Report did not match the Connection ID on the related exchange order. As provided in Section 6.6 of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications, Connection ID is one of five fields used in the OATS matching process when matching an OATS Route Report to the related order in an exchange. Since the OATS for NMS expansion became effective, OATS has monitored firms’ use of the Connection ID but has not marked any Routes as unmatched due only to Connection ID. Based on FINRA’s review of firms’ recent performance, it appears most firms are correctly using the Connection ID when applicable. Therefore, beginning May 21, 2012, FINRA will begin marking as unmatched any Route to a NASDAQ or NYSE exchange where the Connection ID on the OATS Route Report does not match the Connection ID on the related exchange order. Unmatched Routes due to this reason will appear on the OATS website with the new Unmatched Reason Code of 4016 “Connection ID did not match.” The new Unmatched Reason Code will begin appearing in the OATS Production environment on May 21, 2012 and in the OATS Certificate Test environment on April 23, 2012.

 

OATS Reporting Technical Specifications (4/16/12 edition)

View PDF file (PDF 1.45 MB) 

 

View our archive of past specifications.

If you are having problems accessing these files, please contact FINRA Business and Technology Support Services at 1-800-321-6273.