Data dissemination protocol used by FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) for distributing real-time OTC equity, agency debt, and bulletin board market data through multiple specialized feed services.
The FINRA Data Feed Interface encompasses a family of real-time data feeds that disseminate trade, quote, and market data from FINRA regulatory reporting facilities. These feeds serve as the primary distribution mechanism for data generated by the Over-the-Counter Reporting Facility (ORF), the Alternative Display Facility (ADF), the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB), and the TRACE system.
Key feed services include TDDS (Trade Data Dissemination Service) for OTC equity transaction data, BBDS (Bulletin Board Dissemination Service) for OTCBB quote and market participant data, and ATDS (Agency Debt Trade Dissemination Service) for TRACE-eligible agency debt securities. Together these feeds provide comprehensive coverage of OTC and ADF market activity.
FINRA's technical service provider Nasdaq operates the Multi Product Platform (MPP) infrastructure. The feeds have undergone protocol modernization, migrating from legacy simplex IP transmission to the MoldUDP64 protocol, the same transmission protocol used for Nasdaq UTP data feeds.
FINRA data feeds operate over UDP multicast using the MoldUDP64 transmission protocol. This provides sequenced message delivery over multicast channels with automated retransmission capability via dedicated unicast addresses. Message headers include nanosecond-precision timestamps with a 35-byte header structure. TCP-based retransmission services allow subscribers to recover missed messages.
- MoldUDP64 transport - Industry-standard multicast protocol shared with Nasdaq UTP feeds
- Nanosecond timestamps - High-precision time stamping in message headers
- Automated retransmission - Dedicated unicast addresses for gap recovery
- Sequenced messages - Sequence numbers for gap detection across multicast streams
- Regulatory data source - Authoritative feed from FINRA reporting facilities
- Multiple feed products - Specialized feeds for different asset classes and data types