The IBC/TWIST fall newsletter on Bank Service Billing reporting standards and the global AFP Global Service Codes reports definite progress and shows that already the project is reaping benefits for corporates who use the BSB standards.  

Adoption of the BSB standard - banks

The current position for the Bank Service Billing standards, which have been available in the TWIST and the ISO 20022 camt.086 BSB message version for two years, is that:

• in 2014 RBS went live with the BSB standards
• there are 13 other banks who offer BSB reporting: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Danske Bank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan, SEB (Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken),  Société Générale, Standard Chartered Bank and UniCredit  
• five banks now offer the BSB in the ISO 20022 camt.086 message format: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, RBS, Standard Chartered Bank and UniCredit
• two more banks are currently in development of the camt.086 message: Commerzbank with plans for a pilot in the 4th Qtr 2014 and a Pan-European bank planning to go live sometime in 2015.  

In summary, banks have picked up speed migrating to the camt.086 message. While some banks already provide the Global Service Codes with TWIST version 3.1, the majority will implement with the camt.086.

Adoption of the BSB standard - suppliers

Nine TMS and other types of vendor offer a variety of products to help corporates to process and analyze BSBs: Chesapeake Systems Solutions, GTreasury, Hansa Orga, Kyriba, Oracle, SunGard, TIPCO Treasury & Technology, Treasury Intelligence Solutions, and Weiland Corporate Solutions.  (AxleTree, plans to release its product in Jan 2015.)

Adoption of AFP Global Service Codes

The global AFP Global Service Codes banking service codes are now three years old, see. The adoption of the AFP Service Codes© has been slow. Banks have been focussing on first introducing the basic BSB message formats and then moving to the GSC (ISO 20022 camt.086) message format at a later stage, e.g. only five of the 14 banks offering BSB reporting services offer the camt.086 format, and then adding the AFP Service Codes.

Harmonization of messages

A forum for corporations, banks and vendors have recommended that a Working Group be formed to undertake a detailed harmonization of BSB/camt.086 messages, and, at a later stage, to expand the global, universal service code set to include additional bank services e.g. guarantees, loans, derivatives etc.

Corporates progress

Three corporates, AIG, Merck and Seimens - all of whom had a goal of having all bank fees reported electronically for all bank accounts across the world, reported that:

• even banks that supply BSB file have challenges in terms of quality of data and coverage to all countries
• banks need to be more responsive to BSB requests
• new systems for the corporate treasury department need to able to process BSB data
• other corporates should join the BSB initiative
• they are participating in the newly founded CGI workgroup to define a common standard with regards to electronic billings for banks and corporates usage.

The numbers of bank customers receiving BSB messages varies from two to 325+ (for the 10 banks who reported), with TWIST concluding that banks eight banks had an average of 32 corporate customers each.

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CTMfile take: This is vital work and will save corporate treasury departments huge amounts of time and cut their bank charges……. when the standards are fully developed and adopted by the banks. There will be real pay-back for corporates investing their time and effort to drive this work.