Tuesday at the Standards Forum saw the official launch of the ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter.  Compère Muir, always in danger of breaking into a song when you shove a mike in his hand, thankfully spared us his vocal talents… instead we were treated to a local A Capella group singing in… you guessed it… perfect harmony. Geddit?  [Editor’s note: Groan. Did you really have to go there?] 

The main principle behind the charter is very simple.  As ISO 20022 is being implemented by so many market infrastructures around the world there is a very real danger that the wide variations in usage of the standard will creep into use.  For the larger players who operate in multiple markets this scenario would represent an enormous opportunity missed.

Today the MIs use a compendium of integration technologies, some MT messaging, some proprietary formats.  Difficult to implement and maintain.  Not scalable.  Every new MI you connect to has another new set of rules and technologies. What a pain. 

Wouldn’t it be so very cool if we could create a common set of rules, guidelines, best practices messages, schemas, all for the greater good.

Twelve Market Infrastructures certainly think so. Others will surely follow.

SWIFT is uniquely qualified to drive this program and realise this opportunity.  The first piece of the puzzle in the framework will be a repository of information that all the MIs will share with each other.  Building upon this foundation will be a set of market practice guidelines.  The third piece of the framework will be a set of principles to govern version and release management. 

SWIFT will tie these pieces together, wrap them all up and put a bow on top using the MyStandards platform.

Watch this space for more updates in the coming weeks and months. 

All together now…

Kum-ba-ya my Lord Kum-ba-ya.