After the successful 10th Anniversary of the Standards Forum at Sibos in Dubai SWIFT is kicking off the 2014 program in New York this week.  This will be first of six meetings planned for this year; the others being held in Singapore, London, Moscow, the Netherlands, and of course, the flagship 4-day gig at Sibos in Boston. 

The New York event is being hosted by Citi, immediately following the SWIFT Business Forum.  I like this for two reasons.  Six years may have passed since Lehman, but T&E dollars remain very tight for most of us - so an opportunity to attend two events in one trip is always welcome - the fact that the venue is New York also provides a nice opportunity to combine other business. 

The meeting opens with an all-Brit affair… Brian Crabtree of Citi and Chris Church of SWIFT will take care of the how-do’s and aye-up’s.  Then we’re into the sessions-proper with an update on adoption and implementation of 20022.  The Standards Forum’s very own Chantal Van Es is sure to mention the "Adoption mApp", an iPad app launched at Sibos last year.  The app provides details of over 60 known initiatives using 20022.  I use it all the time. If you haven’t downloaded it yet what are you waiting for? 

Richard Dzina from the New York Fed and Roy DeCicco from JPM, both on the agenda at this event last year, will provide an update on the latest thinking around how 20022 will be adopted in the context of US payments. 

After a much-needed double espresso we’ll then get to choose between two breakout sessions…  one relating to securities, and the other payments.  The payments session features Mark Brule from the Canadian Payments Association.  In February 2010 the CPA published their "Payments Strategy – Vision 2020" paper.  This was followed in July 2012 by the publication of the "ISO 20022 Strategy and Roadmap" which called for the adoption 20022 as soon as 2016.  Also featuring in this session is Susan Boeri from GE.  Susan is a SOFA regular and one of the most enthusiastic supporters of 20022 that I know!  Every bank needs a 20022 champion like Susan. 

In the securities session we’ll hear an update on the DTCC Corporate Actions Reengineering Initiative from Patrick Barthel.  The service has been live for quite some time now, but I’m looking forward to hearing about the roadmap and next steps. 

Next is a session entitled “Unlocking the power of the ISO 20022 model”.  For me, one of the highlights of 2013 Standards Calendar was the decision to publicly release the 20022 repository.  According to the session description the repository has been downloaded 4,000 times from the 20022 website.  Alas, we’ll never know who these people are though as the site is not gated.  

It is generally accepted that banks and other financial institutions will start to leverage 20022 as a basis for their internal information architecture, and that tools will start to emerge to help with this.  I know of one such tool - a simple Google search for "20022 repository tool" should take you there – and surely other tools will follow.  Let’s see if the panelists from State Street, Citi, and SWIFT agree. 

And there endeth the Standards Forum New York.  However, there’s more standards stuff planned for the afternoon so don’t go away.  Still onsite at Citi, there will be a meeting of the MyStandards Open User Group.  I wrote about MyStandards on these pages just last week so I won’t repeat any of that here, but it will be interesting to hear first hand from 3 large SWIFT users that are MyStandards Premium users.  It might have been even nicer to hear from one or two of their clients, the ones who actually get to consume the MyStandards content. 

Also on the agenda, ISITC will discuss the use of MyStandards from a Market Practice perspective.  MyStandards has some very nifty features that can compare similar guidelines.  However, in order to maximize the benefit of this functionality it is very important that ISITC and other market practice organizations create their collections in a consistent way - a standard for documenting standards if you like.  ISITC has wisely resisted the temptation to publish market practice guidelines in MyStandards until we have a reasonable consensus on this point within the SMPG.

Last but not least, SWIFT will demonstrate their new “Readiness Portal”, officially launched in London last week, and blogged about by yours truly. 

And that’s your lot.  Look forward to seeing you all in New York.