IBS Journal October 2015


ISO 20022: Singing from


the same hymn sheet Sibos 2015 is just around the corner. With so many exhibitors and attendees gearing up for what will be a whirlwind few days in Singapore, Swift is already preparing itself for its educational Standards Forum, the keystone of which will undoubtedly be ISO 20022. Keeping the standard high on the agenda of big market players will be an important task for Swift and, though it’s making steady progress globally, there is still some confusion amongst its proponents.


by Alex Hamilton ISO 20022 is aimed at businesses that want to reorganise their communications by giving them the chance to opt for a single common language, a language can be used for all financial communications no matter the industry, the network or the receiver. The models, derived outputs and methodol- ogy are all stored in a central repository – a dictionary for the payments processor. If there isn’t an ISO 20022 message to cover a type of transaction then new initiatives can be launched to define new ones. When a bank has two or three initia-


tives to deal with, it’s fine to handle that, says Stephan Lindsay, head of standards at Swift. When those two or three initia- tives grow to 20 or 30, however, it becomes an issue. There needs to be a far different approach from the community in regards


to proper implementation of the new standard, he adds, one that will make it much easier and therefore more attractive to a more global audience. ‘Harmonisation’ is the word that Lind-


say highlights, and it will be key for Swift at Sibos and in the future. The new ISO 20022 standard, while showing encour- aging uptake in markets across the globe, particularly in Europe and Asia, is still hav- ing its teething problems. Being an open standard, ISO 20022 is open to modifica- tion by its users, aids in the application of regional specifics. Speaking at the Sibos event in Boston


last year, Chantal Van Es, senior standards implementer at Swift, described the ISO 20022 model as an ‘onion’, i.e. layered. The outer layer is the broad ISO 20022 frame- work. The next layer is the global one – global standards and specifics. Then comes the regional specifics layer, and finally at the core are the specifics of an individual bank. However, this freedom and flexibility


can create confusion and raise questions among banks about what data should be included in the messages. The issue, Lind- say says, is that those that are using ISO 20022 are doing so in multiple different ways without consulting one another – and the longer that this continues the more complex adoption can become. Sathya Ram, head of regional clearing


Swift HQ, Belgium 36 © IBS Intelligence 2015 www.ibsintelligence.com


and FX payments at HSBC, commented at last year’s event that ‘for countries transi- tioning from FIN to ISO 20022 the fields and syntax differ greatly’. Will the market be able to talk the same language, particular- ly with cross-border payments, he asked.


analysis: swift standards


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