Financial markets technology: fundamentals and operations

Objectives and progression

Independent professional pathway for IT and APS teams supporting financial markets and funds. Six modules connect the trade lifecycle, reference data, FIX sessions, order state, settlement, NAV, corporate actions, capacity, and operational transition. Includes 24 questions and eight original cases with explanations for every option. Internal assessment of 26 decisions in 60 minutes. Primary BIS, ECB, ESMA, FIX Trading Community, GLEIF, ANNA, DTCC, SEC, and AWS references. Distinguishes technical state from business outcome, with explicit versions and inspection limits. This is not external certification, investment advice, or a bank procedure.

Audience: APS teams, L3 support, IT project managers, and markets and funds technology professionals.

Prerequisites: Basic application, integration, and support knowledge. Exercises use synthetic values and require no market or banking-system access.

270 estimated study minutes

• Distinguish execution, detail agreement, and final transfer using stage-specific evidence.
• Validate identity, semantics, effective dates, and freshness of service data.
• Separate session continuity, message recovery, and order effects.
• Track obligations, partial states, and securities and cash dependencies.
• Connect input quality, calculation, and events to reconciliation and controlled publication.
• Plan deadlines, capacity, and autonomy with complete rehearsals and dated sources.

Modules

1. Trade lifecycle and responsibilities
2. Reference and market data
3. FIX sessions and order state
4. Post-trade and settlement
5. Funds, NAV, and corporate actions
6. Operations, change, and T+1 readiness

Continue learning

Finance / Banking technology

• Banking infrastructure: professional fundamentals assessment
• ISO 20022: professional fundamentals assessment
• SWIFT: professional knowledge assessment
• Application Production Support
• Operational risk: professional fundamentals assessment

References and version

DR financial markets technology professional assessment2026.10

• Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures · 2026-10-01
• What is T2S? · 2026-10-01
• ESMA statement on T+1 preparations · 2026-10-01
• EU T+1 legal and regulatory changes · 2026-10-01
• The Legal Entity Identifier · 2026-10-01
• Identifiers · 2026-10-01
• FIX Session Layer overview · 2026-10-01
• FIX Session Layer technical standard · 2026-10-01
• Order State Changes · 2026-10-01
• Answering Key Trade Affirmation Questions for T+1 · 2026-10-01
• Asset Services · 2026-10-01
• Net Asset Value · 2026-10-01
• Principles for operational resilience · 2026-10-01
• OPS7 Operational readiness · 2026-10-01
• REL6 Monitor workload resources · 2026-10-01
• Making retries safe with idempotent APIs · 2026-10-01