• Representation of a (part of a) key business notion, characterised by specific Business Elements. Each Business Component may have one or more Associations with other Business Components. A Business Component is uniquely identified in the Dictionary.

Examples: TradeTransaction, Account, CashEntry

A business characteristic of a Business Component. A Business Element is uniquely identified in its Business Component, its meaning can only be described unambiguously in combination with its Business Component.

When a business characteristic of a Business Component may be repeated in an instance of that Component, a multiplicity information is added behind the Business Element name between square brackets; e.g. "[2..n]" - meaning that the characteristic can be repeated two to an indefinite number of times.

Examples: DealPrice (in TradeTransaction), SettledQuantity (in SecuritiesTransfer), Amount (in CashEntry).

A semantic relation between two Business Components. The meaning of a Business Association is always defined in combination with these two Business Components. A Business Association is therefore uniquely identified in the scope of two Business Components.

Business Associations have a name, a defined direction going from a "source" component towards a "target" component and optionally a multiplicity information. The multiplicity information is indicated between square brackets in the list of associations. It is used to indicate that multiple associations may exist between instances of both Business Components (e.g.: "[1..n]" - meaning that between one to an indefinite number of associations may exist) or that the Business Association may not always exist (e.g. "[0..1]").

Business Associations may be of two kinds:

• "simple" associations
• "aggregation" associations. Compared to a "simple" Business Association, an "aggregation" type of Business Association represents a closer relation between both components bearing a "is made of" meaning (i.e. the "source" component is made of the "target" component).

To ease user readability, the Business Associations are always presented in the Dictionary as "preformatted sentences" following the templates below:

•  
  • Sentence template for "simple" Business Associations: [multiplicity] is/are the association name > of

Examples for the Business Associations AccountOwner and Issuer: [1..n] Party is/are the AccountOwner of Account Organization is/are the Issuer ofFinancialInstrument  

• Sentence template for "aggregation" Business Associations: has [multiplicity] as association name>

Example for the Business Association Entry and ClearingBroker: SecuritiesAccount has [0..n] SecuritiesEntry as Entry SettlementChain has ChainParty as ClearingBroker

A physical business user (i.e. person, organisation or infrastructure) or a functional role in a particular Business Process. A Business Actor/Role is uniquely identified in the Dictionary.

Examples: Infrastructure, SettlementAgent, TradingParty

A Data Type is the unambiguous specification of the set of valid values of a Business Element or of a Message Element.
The set of valid values may be defined via a format specification or via an exhaustive enumeration of all possible values. A Data Type is uniquely identified in the Dictionary.
Each Data Type belongs to a specific category of Data Types called a Data Type Representation or Representation Type.
Each Data Type Representation is characterized by a set of technical information required for implementation and processing.
The Data Type Representations currently used in the Dictionary are: Amount, Code, DateTime, Identifier, Indicator, Quantity, Rate and Text.

Examples of Data Types (Representation Types): PercentageRate (Rate), BalanceTypeCode (Code), PaymentDirectionIndicator (Indicator)

A reusable Dictionary Item that is a building block for assembling messages. It is normally linked to a Business Component and characterised by specific Message Elements. A Message Component is uniquely identified in the Dictionary.
A Message Component may be qualified as a "Choice" component meaning that only one of the elements composing this Message Component may be selected in an XML instance of a message containing that Choice Message Component.

A characteristic of a Message Component. A Message Element is uniquely identified in its Message Component.

When a Message Element may be repeated in an instance of a Message Component, a multiplicity information is added behind the Message Element name between square brackets; e.g. "[0..n]" - meaning that the Message Element may be repeated 0, 1 or an indefinite number of times.

A constraint attached to a Business or Message Component and defining specific conditions applicable to that Component or to its associated Business Components. A Rule is uniquely identified in the scope of a Business or Message Component.

Examples: ExchangeConversionRule (applied on the Business Component CurrencyExchange), AmountsCurrencyRule (applied on the Message Component SubscriptionCashFlow2).

Some typical rules that may appear regularly in the Dictionary are:

• Format or XML Facet: This rule assigned to a Data Type provides formatting constraints on the value that may be assigned to an element typed by this Data Type. Typical constraints that may be assigned are for instance:
• Total number of digits;
• A pattern with which the value must comply (e.g. 3 alphanumeric characters);
• Maximum value