Milestone reached on ISO 20022 – new standards for retail real-time payments

An international project focused on improving standards for retail real-time payments has published a first draft of ISO 20022 messages to be used by the global payments industry. The landmark first draft announced today (10 August 2015) is the result of work by the ISO Real-Time Payments Group (RTPG), made up of over 50 global experts facilitated by Payments UK, which has been tasked with driving forward the project of developing the ISO 20022 messages required.

ISO 20022 has been developed to reflect the global nature of the financial services industry and the work of the RTPG is helping facilitate real-time initiatives across the globe. Many countries and regions are implementing, or actively thinking about implementing, real-time retail payment systems – and the drafting of the technical documentation on ISO 20022 is a crucial step in supporting these markets on their journey.

The focus of the work is not merely on helping countries with their domestic implementation, it also has a large focus on interoperability between systems – a consistent set of standards will facilitate cross-border real-time payments in the future. Industry stakeholders are encouraged to become involved in the review process to ensure a truly representative and global standard by getting in touch with Payments UK.

While the work of the RTPG is being reviewed across the industry, the group will be busy drafting the next set of ISO 20022 messages needed to support real-time payments. The group will be meeting again at SIBOS Singapore on 12 to 15 October where there will be an opportunity to update the wider industry on progress.

Maurice Cleaves, Chief Executive of Payments UK, said:“ISO 20022 is likely to be a real game-changer globally and domestically, enabling a level of interoperability we have never seen before.”

Doug Kreviazuk, Vice President, Next Generation Clearing and Settlement of the Canadian Payments Association (CPA): “The Canadian Payments Association welcomes Payments UK’s leadership in the development of a truly global ISO 20022 message set to support faster or immediate payments. This international committee will drive greater efficiency in cross-border and domestic payments. The resulting message set will be leveraged by the CPA in its own modernisation initiative to better meet the needs of those who depend upon Canada’s payments system.”

Irfan Ahmad, Vice President, Product Development and Strategy, The Clearing House: “The Clearing House supports the effort under way to harmonise ISO 20022 messaging standards for Real Time Payments. In the short-term we believe these efforts will have a tremendous industry impact with multi-national companies, who can use the same formats and procedures across their operations. In the long-term this effort provides the foundation for international interoperability among Real Time Payments systems.”

What is ISO 20022?
ISO 20022 is an international standard developed to facilitate electronic data interchange between financial institutions. It supports interoperability between all parties in the payments process. However ISO 20022 is not only a group of message standards. It was created by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) as a new way to develop message standards within the financial industry – a standard to develop standards, so to speak.

Why do standards matter?
Financial institutions exchange massive amounts of information with their customers and among themselves in the course of delivering the services we all use every day. ISO 20022 offers a more efficient way of developing and implementing message standards that will serve as a basis for long-term solutions. Historically these complex financial communications evolved into formats based on national or regional boundaries, but ISO 20022 has been developed to reflect the global nature of the financial services industry.

What are the benefits of ISO 20022?
ISO 20022 is a single, common ‘language’ for all financial communications – no matter where the business is based. It allows participants and systems in different markets to ‘talk’ to each other using consistent terminology and formatting.
This has particular benefits for international financial communication between financial institutions, their clients and the domestic or international ‘market infrastructures’ (like payment schemes) involved in the processing of financial transactions. Work is being focussed in this area first.