ICMA
Bond Data Taxonomy
ICMA-BDT-2
- Authority
- E, Industry domain standard or modelVoluntary market convention
- Maturity
- M1, Published and stableCurrent normative or released artifact; still requires implementation due diligence
- Version
- Version 2.0, 27 April 2026
- Jurisdiction
- Global
One of twelve records open without an account, chosen to span every class of authority so the classification can be judged before anybody signs in.
What it does
Machine-readable common language for conventional and DLT bonds across issuance, trading, settlement and distribution
Implementation
XSD, XML examples, JSON, spreadsheet and guide
What it does not do
Legal issuance documents prevail; BDT is not an executable lifecycle, token interface or settlement rail
This is the field that matters. Most failures here are a standard asked to carry something it was never written for, and the resulting gap is discovered in production.
Where it applies
Layers, the questions it helps answer
- L1
Product taxonomy and identifiers
What is the instrument, token, party, venue, transaction and network?
- L2
Terms, contract and data semantics
Which terms, legal agreements, code lists and data definitions are canonical?
Phases, when in the life of an instrument
- P0
Design time
legal classification, authority-of-record map, product archetype, standards shortlist
- P1
Build time
schemas, interfaces, mappings, adapters, rules, invariants and test plans
- P2
Issuance and deployment
identifiers, contracts, roles, registries, modules, documents and configuration manifest
- P5
Lifecycle servicing
calculations, corporate actions, payments, queues, elections and reconciliation
bondtaxonomyopen-artifacts
How it composes with others
Direction matters and is preserved. A conflict is not a warning about quality; it means the two cannot both hold without an adapter or a design change.
Maps to, through an explicit mapping Financial services universal financial industry message schemeISO-20022
Bond terms can populate securities messages through an explicit versioned mapping; it is not automatic or lossless.
Maps to, through an explicit mapping Common Domain ModelFINOS-CDM-7
Issuance terms can seed CDM product/lifecycle concepts through a governed semantic mapping.
Profiled by Guardian Fixed Income FrameworkGUARDIAN-GFIF
GFIF uses BDT for debt product terms.
Source and terms of use
- Primary source
- https://www.icmagroup.org/fintech-and-digitalisation/fintech-advisory-committee-and-related-groups/bond-data-taxonomy/
- Licence and access
- Royalty-free implementation rights subject to ICMA terms; no standalone resale or false official status
- Last verified
- 2026-08-15, primary source verified
The Institute links to and describes primary sources; it does not reproduce their normative text. Several of these documents are copyrighted and cannot be redistributed, and the licence note above is the record’s own statement of its terms, not a grant. Status is reported as observed at 2026-08-15 in catalogue release 1.0.0 and must be revalidated before use. Nothing here is legal, regulatory, accounting, tax, investment, security-audit or production-readiness advice, and neither a published status nor an open implementation is a regulatory approval or a certification.