Domain Model Financial Trading application

Question

Hello;

my company is thinking about implementing a new financial compliance trading application which is an application that would check all trades that would be executed by the company. A very simple check might be "Don't Invest in Stocks that sell Alcohol" for example.

We need to define a financial business object model and then design the actual rule engine. Some potential data models would be Security, Trade, Derivative, etc.

My question does any one know where I could look at some Financial Domain Model already written that would be a good starting place for us to begin our analysis?

We don't want to re-invent the wheel and coming up with an existing financial object model would be very helpful. Thanks all

Answer 1

You could check out the FPML spec. for some ideas about how to model your data. However, I'd recommend only browsing it to get an idea of the domain objects you might need - Don't try to copy it as it's almost certainly too complex / detailed for your needs.

In fact for domain-specific data such as you describe I've found it's almost always better to build rather than buy (cheaper, faster, easier to change, easier to understand, better fit within your fitm). However, you might want to consider a 3rd party engine for implementing your actual rules component (e.g. Drools).

Answer 2

Check "Analysis Patterns: Reusable Object Models", a book by Martin Fowler. The book include some useful examples to think about financial domains and OO analysis.

Answer 3

Well, your problem domain is rather different, because you basically want an rule-driven system, but if you want to see a very good object model for financial applications, see Quantlib. It's open-source, and it's extremely well documented. It approaches the problem from a option pricing perspective, but it might give you some ideas anyway. As an example, see how they have modelled a swap.

Answer 4

Building your own finance domain model is hard if your not experienced. Your completely right to be looking for examples.

If your company if serious about build a proper product that will be successfully they must hire someone with such experience.

Apart from that expect your model to change a lot as the product is developed.

Best of luck :-)