The FOA has issued Price Indices Guidelines for Price Agregators and Data Providers.
Price transparency plays an essential role in the development of new products, measuring performance and facilitating market efficiency, participation and liquidity. However, in order to meet these objectives, published prices and the processes involved in the submission, collation, aggregation, averaging and distribution of price data must, if those prices are to enjoy the confidence of market participants, be transparent, free (so far as reasonably possible) of error, timely, complete, verifiable/auditable and properly representative of the underlying supply and demand in the market in question. Due regard should also be paid to securing and maintaining the confidential nature of certain aspects of the data, particularly, wherever appropriate, the identity of data providers and counterparties to transactions.
The recommendations set out in these guidelines fall essentially into two parts, namely, good practice in the gathering and submission of data by providers to price aggregators and good practice in the aggregation and distribution of reference prices by price aggregators.
