The increased use of network communications within industries,
and among firms, suppliers, and customers, is
focusing greater attention on the methods and standards
for interorganizational communications. In the securities
indushy, the settlement and clearing of trades depends
on numerous messages to be sent and received by
several organizations. Using the principles of Formal
Languages for Business Communication (FLBC), we develop
a message representation that is flexible and self-describing,
and show how defeasible reasoning applied
to settlement messages could handle problem trades.
This application of FLBC offers advantages through
machine-to-machine error reconcilement, integration
with other market communications systems, and robustness
to changes in securities design and regulation.Information Systems Working Papers Serie