financial-services-interest-group/CHARTER.md

FSIG Charter

This document defines the mission, scope, and strategic approach of the MCP Financial Services Interest Group (FSIG).

For governance details, roles, and current members, see GOVERNANCE.md

Mission & Scope

Mission

The FSIG coordinates financial-industry stakeholders to:

• Define and build finance-specific MCP extensions (compliance/auditability, data lineage & provenance, guardrails & attestation, etc.)
• Advocate for spec enhancements when extensions aren't sufficient (via SEPs with core maintainer sponsorship)
• Drive common standards enabling interoperability across regulated institutions
• Provide a neutral forum to address regulatory and risk constraints with open technical solutions

Scope

In Scope:

• Technical standards and protocols for financial services
• MCP extensions addressing compliance, security, and regulatory requirements
• Appropriate implementations of extensions for testing and validation
• Interoperability patterns and conformance testing
• Documentation and reference implementations

Out of Scope:

• Competitively sensitive topics (pricing, customer lists, market strategies, etc.)
• Non-technical business discussions

Note: FSIG adheres to the MCP Antitrust Policy. All participants must comply with antitrust guidelines.

Extensions vs. Core Spec

Extensions

Extensions are domain-specific additions that can be developed and iterated on within the FSIG to address financial services requirements. They allow us to:

• Develop solutions for real-world financial services scenarios
• Gather implementation experience and feedback
• Move quickly on specialized domain requirements
• Provide production-ready capabilities for financial institutions

Extensions are fully supported specifications developed and maintained within the FSIG repository. They may evolve based on implementation experience and feedback from the community.

Relationship to Core Spec

FSIG extensions complement the core MCP specification rather than fragment it. When an extension demonstrates broad applicability beyond financial services, it becomes a candidate for promotion to the core MCP specification through:

1. SEP (Spec Enhancement Proposal) — A formal proposal documenting the extension, its rationale, and implementation experience
2. Core Maintainer Sponsorship — Support from MCP core maintainers who shepherd the proposal
3. Community Consensus — Agreement from the broader MCP community through the SEP review process

This pathway ensures that domain-specific innovations can eventually benefit the entire MCP ecosystem when appropriate.

Proactive Promotion

The FSIG actively identifies extensions with broad applicability and assesses appetite for promotion to the core spec. The group serves as:

• Real-world validation — Providing implementation experience and use cases from regulated environments
• Collective advocacy — A coalition of contributors who can speak to the value and necessity of capabilities
• SEP champions — Subject matter experts who can shepherd proposals through the enhancement process

When an extension shows promise for broader adoption, maintainers will:

1. Assess applicability — Evaluate whether the extension solves problems beyond financial services
2. Gauge community interest — Discuss with other MCP groups and the broader community
3. Build consensus — Work with FSIG members to align on the promotion strategy
4. Coordinate with liaison — Engage with David Soria Parra to pursue SEP sponsorship

This proactive approach ensures that valuable innovations developed for financial services can benefit the entire MCP ecosystem.

Core Maintainer Liaison: David Soria Parra serves as our liaison to the core MCP maintainers for SEP sponsorship.

Amendments

This charter may be amended by:

1. Proposal via GitHub Issue or pull request
2. Discussion in meetings and/or GitHub
3. Consensus approval from maintainers
4. Documentation of rationale in the PR or issue

Significant changes should be announced in Discord and allow for community input before finalization.

Questions?

For questions about this charter, please:

• Ask in the #financial-services-ig Discord channel
• Open a GitHub Issue
• Contact the maintainers (see GOVERNANCE.md)