Published in 2010, SWIFT’s guidebook ‘ISO 20022 for Dummies’ presents a useful tool to gauge the changes in thinking toward ISO 20022 over the last decade. In an article with Finextra, Isabel Schmidt, Global Head of Direct Clearing and Asset Account Services, BNY Mellon Treasury Services, explores how assertions and predictions made about the migration have played out over the last decade.
Schmidt explains that while a lot of industry discussions currently focus on payment messages and core cash management messages, “overall thinking has also evolved to embrace the concept that a more robust payment message also provides the basis for major efficiency potential in the pre- and post-payment exception and investigations space.”
Schmidt explores how SWIFT’s first attempts to help banks improve this space dates back over 10 years when the E&I initiative was launched and that unfortunately the initiative lacked a sufficiently robust standard to really enable comprehensive automation of exception workflows.
“This space is now being revisited, based on more structured and more robust payment data which the ISO 20022 standard will provide. This is a considerable incremental efficiency opportunity for banks and a further step towards a much-enhanced client experience end-to-end.”
To read the full article, click here.
The introduction of ISO 20022, the new payments messaging standard, is set to revolutionise the payments industry. The existing infrastructures, including SWIFT MT messages and their proprietary equivalents, are no longer suitable for modern payment needs. By replacing them, the industry aims to create a messaging ecosystem that can facilitate an efficient, value-added payments experience for clients.
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the desire for real-time cash-balance liquidity reporting began to build. Fast forward, however, and its implementation within the banking industry remains limited. In an article for Global Banking and Finance Review, Deutsche Bank’s Andreas Hauser argues that now is the time to revive this momentum and take action.
Change is afoot across the global payments landscape. Pinging on the radars of market participants for some time, the fast-approaching November 2021 migration of the world’s primary payment market infrastructures (MIs) to the ISO 20022 financial messaging standard is now looming large.
Deutsche Bank has released its second guide to the ISO 20022 migration. As Part 1 of the Guide emphasised, banks should not consider the migration to ISO 20022 as just “another IT project” and it’s equally important that corporates do not make the mistake of writing it off as just “another bank project”. So whether it’s a global bank implementing seismic changes, or a small corporate taking more modest steps, all market participants need to be regularly updated and ensure they are moving in the right direction.
Writing in TMI, Deutsche Bank’s Christian Westerhaus explores the opportunities and challenges presented by the migration to ISO 20022. To meet the challenge, banks, corporates and financial stakeholders must fully commit – allocating budgets, resources and project teams to allow their operations to meet the higher standard.
The upcoming migration to ISO 20022 will have far-reaching implications for all banks, corporates and other important financial stakeholders. It is probably the most impactful payments industry undertaking since the introduction of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) more than a decade ago, and will require CEO commitment, allocation of appropriate budgets, resources and project teams given that a multitude of areas will be affected across institutions. This is not simply “another IT project”.
