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Why did FPL change its membership fee structure?
FPL's Global Steering Committee sought to significantly enhance the FPL membership value proposition and has identified several key changes to the membership fee structure to help support this objective. These changes include eliminating "per committee" membership fees, targeting buyside firms, and a reduced pricing policy with clear qualifications for small firms with limited financial resources who contribute with volunteer resources. Overall, this structure is envisaged to facilitate greater participation from member firms geographically and across products, improve buyside participation, and establish a fair and equitable way to include small firms.
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What is the structure and cost of FPL membership?
Please refer to the "FPL Membership Pricing Structure" document.
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I am a prospective FPL member, where are the benefits of FPL membership defined?
FPL is open to all firms interested in participation including buyside, sellside, exchanges, ECNs/ATSs, vendors, as well as other industry organizations. Please refer to the "FPL Membership Benefits" and "FPL Membership Benefits - Frequently Asked Questions" documents.
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Why do buyside firms pay less than other firms in the rate structure?
Buyside participation in FPL has not grown and been as high as we would like. It is also well understood that strong buyside participation at meetings and events attracts sellside and vendor participation. Thus FPL's GSC has decided to "target" the buyside.
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What are some of the "greater recognition and sponsorship benefits which will be further developed" planned for "Premier" members?
The FIX website infrastructure lends itself well to accommodating differentiation between members and non-members in terms of listings and access capability. FPL plans to explore offering a set of advertising and sponsorship opportunities in conjunction with Phase II of the FIX website revamp. FPL also plans to explore offering various advertising and sponsorship opportunities for FPL publications and events. FPL also welcomes ideas and suggestions from prospective "premier" members.
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Other than being seen as someone with a large wallet, are there other benefits to being a "Premier" member?
As the executive of a prominent buyside firm put it: "probably the same benefits that your firm feels it derives from spending lots of money on glossy adverts telling me 'we are here to help you, our clients'...as an existing client I would rather you spend a little more cash on actually helping us and the industry by contributing a little more cash to FPL rather than puffing vacuous advertising at me...hands up anyone who is here NOT to help our clients!!! ...Don't take this personally, feel free to replace your firm's name with Broker-X, Broker-Y, Broker-Z, Vendor-X, Exchange-X...and any other fine, upstanding, blue chip, global corporate citizens."
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What constitutes "volunteer" time for the "Small Firm" category?
Volunteer time consists of participating at committee or working group meetings (in person or via conference call) and working on assigned committee or working group tasks.
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How are volunteer hours calculated? Are they hours firm-wide for "Small Firms"?
Yes, for the "Small Firm" category, the firm's total volunteer time would be the accumulation of its contribution firm-wide. These represent the number of hours accumulated over the same 12 months as the membership term.
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Regarding the variable pricing for the "Small Firm" category, what if I commit to the lower level of volunteer participation but contribute at the higher level and vice-versa?
The idea is not to make this overly complicated. For the first year, the small firm/individual would pledge a commitment of 5 or 30 hours and pay or receive waived dues accordingly. A member of the GSC would effectively have to vouch for them for their renewal. If you committed to 30 hours but did not attain that, then you would not be accepted into the waived category for your renewal. If you committed 5 hours, paid your $500, and volunteered 30 hours, then you would have demonstrated that you should be in the waived category upon your renewal. FPL does not plan to issue any credits if one exceeds the criteria for the category during the 12 month period nor does FPL intend to bill "extra charges" if one fails to meet the criteria during the 12 month period for the category which they pledged. This would indicate that the firm should be re-classified and will be taken into consideration during their annual renewal process.
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How does FPL expect to confirm a Small Firm's revenue and number of employees?
A senior official of the firm must sign a letter stating that their firm meets the criteria. FPL does not envisage "policing" this.
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How can an independent, self-employed or unemployed individual join FPL?
An independent, self-employed, or unemployed individual can apply for "Small Firm" membership status.
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When will the membership fee structure change again?
FPL expects this membership fee structure to be in place for the upcoming year. FPL's Global Steering Committee will review membership funding requirements with respect to the number of firms participating, the level of funding derived from non-membership sources, and budgetary requirements prior to the next calendar year at which point in time, a revised membership fee structure may be introduced. The overall objective is to have more firms join and pay less and to ensure that FPL becomes more inclusive.
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Does FPL plan on introducing any new committees or working groups?
FPL's regional committees (Asia/Pac, Americas, Europe, and Japan) have been expanding their presence geographically. For instance the Asia/Pac Committee has been very focused on China given the Chinese market's adoption of FIX for its next generation market systems, the Americas Committee has recently been focused on Canada, and the European Committee is focused on increasing participation from across continental Europe. FPL has numerous other working groups focused on key initiatives such as Certification, Algorithmic Trading and DMA (Direct Market Access), Allocations, etc.
