The ISO 20022 global financial messaging standard continues to be widely adopted, as Swift announces it has delivered 50 ISO 20022 consulting projects to more than 70 clients across the globe.

To further facilitate the adoption of the payments standard – which is used in 200 initiatives around the world, including Sepa, Target2-Securities, Target2 and EBA Euro1/Step1 – Swift has published guidelines for the implementation of the standard.

The guide, Best Practice for Successful Implementation of ISO 20022, is aimed at financial institutions, but there are inevitably lessons and ideas for the corporate treasury department.

The guidelines provide a step-by-step approach to:

• defining a practical implementation roadmap;
• defining the business impact assessment;
• defining the technology assessment;
• defining the ‘to-be' business architecture;
• defining the various layers of the enterprise architecture - across business; data; application and technology; and
• ensuring the right balance across business and IT internal stakeholders.

Patrik Neutjens, ISO 20022 programme director for standards at Swift, says: “Given financial institutions manage multiple market infrastructure implementations, they need a plan for ISO 20022. There is a learning curve and whether organisations are facing a single migration or multiple programmes, Swift's expertise in standards implementation can help financial institutions define tactical or strategic projects, ultimately leading to an implementation roadmap."