Five corporates and thirteen banks have joined forces with standards bodies Twist, IFX, OAGi and financial messaging network Swift to develop and implement a set of ISO 20022 cash management and payment initiation standards in the corporate-to-bank space.
Participating corporates include Arcelor Mittal, Danone, Gaz de France, General Electric, Microsoft, together with the banks ABN Amro, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho, Nordea, Royal Bank of Canada, Standard Chartered Bank Ltd., Société Générale.
The group will define best practices around the implementation and use of the XML-based standards with the ambition to pilot in the second half of 2007.
The pilot applications will eventually see the light of day almost four years on from the signing of an MoU in November 2003 by IFX, OAGi, Swift and Twist on the creation of a single international standard.
The move to implementation follows the agreement earlier this year by Swift members to create a new corporate access category to the interbank payments network.
Julie Monaco, senior vice-president and core cash management business executive, JPMorganChase, says: "Corporates have been consistently asking for XML for some time now. We want to collectively come up with a solution that meets their needs."
The ISO 20022 corporate to bank standard offers a mechanism to improve STP by catering for comprehensive and structured information. The XML messages are also aligned with the interbank ISO 20022 payments standards which are being introduced for the Europe-wide Sepa payments harmonisation project.