ACTUS Standard

The ACTUS Financial Research Foundation (AFRF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the adoption of the ACTUS (Algorithmic Contract Types Unified Standards) open-source standard for representing financial contracts. Here are the key points about ACTUS and the AFRF:

The ACTUS standard consists of two main components:

Data Standard: Defines a universal set of legal terms or contract attributes used as parameters across different financial agreements. It is implemented as a data dictionary with attribute applicability by contract type.

Algorithmic Standard: Defines the logic embedded in legal agreements that translates the contract terms into actual cash flows or business events.

The goal of ACTUS is to provide a standardized way to represent and analyze financial contracts, enabling better risk management, transparency, and interoperability across systems and institutions.

ACTUS Protocol

The ACTUS Protocol is an implementation of the ACTUS standard as Ethereum-based blockchain smart contracts. This allows financial contracts represented using ACTUS to become executable, enforceable, and tokenizable on the blockchain. The ACTUS Protocol aims to enable issuing, servicing, pooling, and trading financial products on the blockchain efficiently.

ACTUS Conference 2024

The AFRF organizes the annual ACTUS Conference, with the 2024 edition scheduled for May 15th at King & Spalding LLP in Washington D.C. The conference agenda explores the transformative potential of the ACTUS open-source standard.

ACTUS Governance

The AFRF and the ACTUS Users Association (AUA) are responsible for maintaining and promoting the ACTUS standard. The AFRF has a Board of Governors comprising industry experts and academics. In summary, the ACTUS standard and the ACTUS Protocol aim to revolutionize the representation and management of financial contracts by providing a standardized, open-source, and blockchain-enabled framework, with the AFRF and AUA driving its adoption and development.

ACTUS aims to transform the financial industry by providing an open-source, standardized framework for representing and managing financial contracts in a machine-readable format. The key ways ACTUS seeks to revolutionize finance are:

Standardized Data Model: ACTUS defines a universal set of legal terms or contract attributes used across different financial agreements, creating a standardized data dictionary for contract representation.

Algorithmic Representation: ACTUS translates the legal terms of financial contracts into executable algorithms that can generate actual cash flows based on market data inputs like interest rates and foreign exchange rates.

Machine-Readability: By representing contracts as machine-readable data and algorithms, ACTUS enables seamless integration with various financial applications like transaction processing, risk management, and accounting systems.

Comprehensive Coverage: With less than three dozen algorithmic templates called Contract Types, ACTUS can represent virtually all existing financial instruments, providing a versatile standard.

Smart Contract Integration: The ACTUS Protocol implements the standard as Ethereum-based blockchain smart contracts, allowing financial agreements to become executable, enforceable, and tokenizable on the blockchain.

Transparency and Interoperability: A common ACTUS standard promotes transparency by enabling institutions to analyze and compare financial contracts consistently. It also facilitates interoperability across systems and firms.

In essence, ACTUS aims to bring standardization, automation, and distributed ledger technology to the core of financial information processing, enabling better risk management, innovation, and collaboration within the industry.