The global rollout of ISO 20022 has made great progress, with endorsement from key financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and market practice groups, according to SWIFT - but still no corporate representatives on board?

The organisation announced that more than 20 market infrastructure providers (including payments associations, market practice groups, central banks and exchange groups) have endorsed the industry-driven ISO 20022 harmonisation charter project.

SWIFT's Patrik Neutjens, ISO 20022 programme director, said: “In the year since we launched the ISO 20022 harmonisation charter, the global support for the initiative has grown exponentially. We are very pleased with the great effort that has been put forward by the FMI community.”

Four principles for ISO 20022

SWIFT’s ISO 20022 harmonisation charter is based on four best-practice principles, which FMIs can implement into their own ISO 20022 initiatives. The principles are:

1. share information between FMIs about ISO 20022 usage;
2. adhere to global market practice where it exists and contribute to new global market practice initiatives;
3. introduce stricter message version control and release management process and timing, in line with the recently defined processes;
4. publish up-to-date information about standards on a common platform, including market practice compliance, messages and versions used and message release timeline.

Support for ISO 20022

The ISO 20022 harmonisation charter has gained support from:

• the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG),
• the Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG),
• the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and
• a number of European CSDs and central banks.

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CTMfile take: As we noted in this article last month, corporates still don't appear to have a voice in this initiative to harmonise and roll out ISO 20022.