Building on adoption of industry-standard technologies like OpenAPI Specification and JSON in recent Standards developments, we are extending the use of the industry-proven resource-orientated design approach used in Standards for Model Portfolio Services (MPS) to other developments, including Platform Account Opening (PAO).
This article summarises some key characteristics of our resource-orientated approach to Standards, compares it to other approaches found in the Standards Library, highlights some advantages of this new direction, and identifies considerations for implementers and the wider standards community.
It is intended for individuals and organisations that have an interest in how our development and management of Standards will be affected by this approach, rather than as a comprehensive analysis of the technical and architectural concepts involved.
Resource-orientated approach
In line with resource-orientated architectures that have become common across IT environments in financial services and beyond, our resource-orientated Standards (ROS) break down large, complex sets of information that need to be exchanged between trading partners into simpler groups of data focused on each of the concepts involved – customer; adviser; asset; etc.
To that extent, resource-orientated Standards share commonalities with our Flexible Integration Toolkit (FIT); but here, the idea of componentisation is taken further. Whereas FIT assembles concept-level data patterns into a larger, process-level message, our resource-orientated Standards define individual services for each of the concepts – or ‘resources’ – involved, which can be interacted with independently.
The process-level perspective is still delivered, though, in an accompanying set of orchestration information. This sets out, at business and technical levels, how the resources are to be used in order to achieve the process-level integration that is the target of the Standard.

Advantages of resource-orientated Standards
Standards-based integration following a resource-orientated approach brings a number of architectural advantages on top of the value that existing Standards-based integration already brings to our stakeholders:
- Reuse Resource-orientated services implemented for one Standards-based integration can be reused in subsequent Standards-based integrations that share the same concepts. For example, where the concept of an adviser has relevance for both MPS and PAO, the adviser resource defined for the former can be reused for the latter – either right out of the box or with a minimum of enhancement.
- Simpler maintenance Where change is required to a particular resource, updating it once also updates it for all the Standards-based integrations that make use of it. For example, if the format of advisers’ Firm Reference Numbers (FRNs) were to be changed again by the FCA, updating the Adviser resource to handle the new format would update it for all the Standards-based integrations that make use of that resource. This compares favourably to the large number of Standards – and implementations thereof – that had to be updated recently across the industry when FRNs were extended to support an additional digit.
- Industry direction Resource orientation has emerged as a leading design pattern – often referred to as REST – in IT for financial services and beyond. By orientating our development approach towards resources, it puts itself – and its stakeholders – in a strong position to leverage this established trend and the increased skills base and tooling support that accompanies it.
It's worth underlining that these advantages accrue both for us in the development and maintenance of standards and for our community that implements services based on those Standards.
What do resource-orientated Standards mean for implementers?
Beyond the above advantages of adopting a resource-orientated approach to integration Standards and their implementation, there are a number of considerations that adopters may wish to bear in mind.
First – and most obviously – adopting resource-orientated Standards requires the implementation of a greater number of individual services, compared to previous approaches illustrated above. Each individual service should be more straightforward to implement than the large, complex services that implement older Standards design approaches, but consideration needs to be given to coordinating the deployment of a larger number of services. Over time, however, this consideration should diminish as existing, live resources get reused in new Standards-based integrations.
Second, maintenance on shared resources is something that – whilst contained within the resources affected – will be relevant to stakeholders in all the integrations that make use of them. Implementers may wish to think about how they govern and schedule such maintenance so as to meet the needs of all stakeholders in resources shared between different lines of business or functional areas. We will of course be mindful of this consideration when liaising with our Standards governance community in its own management of the evolution of resource-orientated Standards over time.
Other considerations
As we move ahead with our resource-orientated approach to Standards, more information will be published setting out how resources will be version-managed as they evolve in response to industry demands, and how versions of resources will be tied to the process orchestrations that define the process-specific Standards. This information will be validated and approved through our Standards governance forums.
Next steps
For more on our resource-orientated approach to Standards development and maintenance, please contact: [email protected].