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BIS publishes proposals for harmonisation of ISO20022 data standards

The Bank for International Settlements' Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) has published harmonised ISO 20022 data requirements amid fears over the inconsistent application of the international messaging standard across different jursidictions.

2 comments

BIS publishes proposals for harmonisation of ISO20022 data standards

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

The data requirements, published in Harmonised ISO 20022 data requirements for enhancing cross-border payments - final report to the G20, establish a consistent minimum set of messaging standards for more efficient processing of cross-border payments.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, chair of the CPMI and deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank of England, says: "The increased adoption of ISO 20022 by payment systems around the world is a major opportunity to improve their interoperability. But this opportunity will not be realised if jurisdictions implement the international messaging standard for payments in inconsistent ways. The CPMI's harmonised ISO 20022 data requirements address that risk and provide a common basis for use of the new messaging standard in cross-border payments."

How far the benefits of adopting these requirements are realised will depend on their uptake. Market participants are encouraged to begin preparations to align with the harmonised ISO 20022 data requirements in earnest and by end-2027 at the latest.

Michele Bullock, former co-chair of the CPMI Messaging Workstream, and governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, comments: "Implementation of these data requirements will require coordinated effort across the global payments community, but the entire community stands to benefit in the long run from a convergence on these shared data practices."

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Comments: (2)

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Will we ever see an end to the ISO 20022 Waiting For Godot Moment?

This is further proof that, while uniformity / standards / interoperability are good for regulators and markets, they deprive suppliers of competitive advantage, so some degree of stonewalling by the latter is par for the course.

A Finextra member 

This is an admission of ignorance.

Talk to any senior exec responsible for an ISO20022 project or any pundit extolling its virtues and you are led to believe that adopting ISO20022 is a silver bullet for interoperability and global standardisation. They are unaware of details such as message formats, tooling, rules and technology protocols (e.g. XML) and their simplistic knowledge is exposed.

ISO20022 had its genesis in batch processing in the early 2000s. It has taken over 20 years for execs to catch up, meanwhile the market has moved on with open API standards, blockchain and instant messaging. ISO20022 is a good basis for defining and modelling payments data and securities data but as this proposal from the BIS suggests, standardisation is far from a given and requires a lot of effort and rule-making. 

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