Why do I need to use FAST?

FAST (FIX Adapted for Streaming) was developed by the FIX Protocol organization to bring the greater benefits of standardization to market data and deliver optimized performance for the exchange of electronic financial information.

Built around a data compression algorithm, it significantly reduces bandwidth requirements and latency between sender and receiver. FAST works particularly well at improving performance during periods of peak message rates. While FAST has grown out of market data, it is applicable and can be used with all FIX messages to offer flexibility in the way that FIX data is formatted for transmission.