New High Value Payments Systems Task Force is a Key Enabler of ISO 20022 Harmonisation

HONG KONG, Aug. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the launch of the ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter, an industry-driven framework to facilitate the rollout of ISO 20022 globally, SWIFT has formed a global market practice task force of markets infrastructures and banks. Sponsored by the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG), the task force aims to address the evolving ISO 20022 standards requirements of high value payments systems (HVPS) providers. It is a key component of SWIFT's ISO 20022 harmonisation initiative that aims to address the industry concern around fragmentation and the risk of multiple versions and flavours being adopted across various markets, leading to higher implementation costs.

The new task force, called HVPS+, will build on the existing HVPS market practice documented in MyStandards that focuses on ensuring interoperability with FIN messages in the cross-border space. The new group, which goes beyond current market practice, will deliver an additional set of ISO 20022 market practice guidelines for high value payments systems, taking into account the evolving needs of market infrastructures and their members, including more structured, accurate and richer end-to-end data. It creates a common foundation on which major payments market infrastructures can build their community implementations, whilst supporting global interoperability.

'From an industry perspective, this is a meaningful collaborative initiative that can benefit all market infrastructures and their members," said Gina Russo, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "By encouraging a standardised global approach to ISO 20022 implementation for high value payments systems, the industry as a whole can be in a position to reduce costs, ensure efficient implementation, and realize the true benefits of using a common global standard."

"As HVPS providers around the globe are planning adoption of ISO 20022, the PMPG is committed to sponsoring this new initiative, helping to establish harmonised global market practice, which is imperative to reduce implementation costs and ensure straight-through processing for banks," added Rob Green, Head of Payments Market Infrastructure in Banking Group Treasury, FirstRand Bank and Director, SWIFT Board of Directors and co-chair, PMPG.

Roy DeCicco, Managing Director and Industry Issues Executive with Treasury Services at JPMorgan and co-chair, PMPG, said "It is great to see market infrastructures and banks join together, to ensure this additional set of ISO 20022 HVPS+ market practice is future-proof and supported by all relevant stakeholders of the financial ecosystem."

Commenting on ISO 20022, Bob Pepitone, CHIPS Product Manager at The Clearing House, said "The Clearing House is adopting ISO 20022 as its preferred messaging standard for real-time and high-value payments. As we prepare our implementation strategy to convert our proprietary CHIPS format specifications to ISO 20022, we would like to use this new global market practice as a baseline. This will allow our members to use the same formats and processes with TCH and other HVP communities, while incorporating the unique characteristics of the CHIPS messaging formats. This approach will definitely help to enable interoperability for all payments market infrastructures globally."

The following organisations are participating in the new HVPS+ task force (in alphabetical order): ABN Amro, Australian Payments Clearing Association, Banca d'Italia, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of England, EBA Clearing, ECB, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, First Rand Bank Ltd, Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited, Payments Canada, Societe Generale, Standard Bank, The Clearing House, and Wells Fargo.

The task force started work at the end of June 2016 and expects to publish a first set of additional market practice guidelines in MyStandards, SWIFT's online platform for sharing standards information, in Q4 2016/Q1 2017.

Please click here to download a copy of SWIFT's 'Best practices for ISO 20022 harmonisation' report. For more information about the HVPS+ task force, please click here to contact SWIFT.

 About ISO 20022

ISO 20022 is a global and open standard, not controlled by a single interest, open to anyone in the industry who wants to participate, and free for anyone to implement on any network. In addition, it has mature and fully established processes for maintenance, evolution and governance. ISO 20022 is a methodology that can be followed to create financial messaging standards. In addition, ISO 20022 is a body of 'content' -- meaning a collection of 'message definitions' and a process of how these can be applied to specific business domains. ISO 20022 brings a range of benefits to the community, including availability of rich and comprehensive information, interoperability and harmonisation, accommodation for both global standards and local usage and it allows for easy data consumption. SWIFT will continue to support FIN MT standards, and is ready to serve communities moving to ISO 20022.

About the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG)
The Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG) provides a truly global forum to drive better market practices which, together with correct use of standards, will help in achieving full STP and improved customer service.

The mission of the PMPG is to:

• take stock of payments market practices across regions
• discuss, explain, and document market practice issues, including economic viability
• recommend market practices, covering end-to-end transactions
• propose best practice, business responsibilities and rules, message flows, consistent implementation of ISO messaging standards and exception definitions
• ensure publication of recommended practices
• encourage an iterative dialogue with communities where community feedback is incorporated in updated publications
• recommend payments market practices in response to changing compliance requirements

About SWIFT

SWIFT is a global member-owned cooperative and the world's leading provider of secure financial messaging services.

We provide our community with a platform for messaging and standards for communicating, and we offer products and services to facilitate access and integration, identification, analysis and financial crime compliance.

Our messaging platform, products and services connect more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations, market infrastructures and corporate customers in more than 200 countries and territories, enabling them to communicate securely and exchange standardised financial messages in a reliable way. As their trusted provider, we facilitate global and local financial flows, support trade and commerce all around the world; we relentlessly pursue operational excellence and continually seek ways to lower costs, reduce risks and eliminate operational inefficiencies.

Headquartered in Belgium, SWIFT's international governance and oversight reinforces the neutral, global character of its cooperative structure. SWIFT's global office network ensures an active presence in all the major financial centres.

For more information, visit www.swift.com or follow us on Twitter: @swiftcommunity and LinkedIn: SWIFT

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