Keeping it real
Global interoperability of real-time payments systems will require harmonisation of market practices and standards.
Standards
ISO 20022: Working in Harmony
Despite celebrating its 10th birthday in 2014 – or perhaps because of it – the number of variations of ISO 20022 being deployed is prompting concerns that it is rapidly becoming less useful as a standard. There is increasing recognition that differences in implementation and market practices could lead to a fragmentation of the standard.
Infrastructures back Swift ISO 20022 harmonisation proposals
Major financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and central banks have thrown their weight behind a Swift initiative to prevent further fragmentation of the ISO 20022 messaging standard as its adoption grows by signing a charter backing principles to harmonise implementations.
Europe’s unsettling times
T2S, Europe’s harmonised settlement platform, is live. With a series of migration waves scheduled up until full live operation in July 2017, the next few years are likely to be characterised by intense activity as market participants finalise their strategies …
Nedbank South Africa revamps payments ahead of September 2016 deadline
South Africa’s Nedbank has chosen Volante Technologies to help it revamp its payments message service using VolPay Foundation, which focuses on validating and processing payments. The move comes ahead of regulatory change next year, which will force all South African institutions to change the way they handle payments.
Roundtable: a world of real-time payments
Call it immediate, instant, fast(er) or real-time, the drive to speed up payments is being discussed in almost every country. As part of that discussion Banking Technology and ACI Worldwide brought together international participants from Australia, Europe, the UK and the US review the opportunities and challenges ahead.
ISO 20022: we’ve reached the crossroads and need to act
Last year, the ISO 20022 standard celebrated its 10th birthday, and consequently it may seem a bit odd to say that after more than a decade since its inception, the financial community really should start taking assertive action. Since 2004, the ISO 20022 standard has, thankfully, witnessed substantial adoption but it has been what could be termed an “uncontrolled adoption”. So why is action so critical now?
Regulators seek input on harmonisation of unique OTC trade reporting identifiers
The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures and the International Organization of Securities Commissions are seeking comment on proposals for harmonising the Unique Transaction Identifier used to be used for OTC derivatives trade reporting.
“Landmark” reached as ISO 20022 comes to international payments
International payments may soon be made using the ISO 20022 messaging standard for the first time, following the publication of the first draft of ISO 20022 payments messages by an industry association backed by Payments UK (formerly the UK Payments Council).
Huawei partners to push cloud transformation for financial IT
As part of its expansion into IT services, Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has partnered with 11 banking IT solution providers to establish an open platform ecosystem for the finance industry.
Volante launches ‘Babel Fish’ for financial messaging transformation
A ‘Babel Fish’ for financial messaging has been launched by Volante Technologies with the intention of simplifying corporate-to-bank integration and removing obstacles to on-boarding. Like the fictional universal translator from Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, the system translates incoming message formats into something that the receiver can understand.
Harmonisation of ISO 20022 is crucial – but who should be in charge?
It seems not a day goes by without seeing those three little letters and five numbers – ISO 20022 – appearing in headlines or articles. But hang on a minute, what’s all the commotion about? It’s just another message format that I need to make sure my systems can handle, right?
Swift offers ISO 20022 implementation best practice guidelines
Swift has published a best practice guideline for implementation of ISO 20022 for financial institutions, based on experience gleaned through its involvement in more than 150 consulting projects for more than 70 clients across the globe.
McKenna to head standards at Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation
Karla McKenna has been named head of standards at the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation on a year’s secondment from Citi, where she is director of market practice and standards.
The Irresistible Rise of Real-Time Payments
Whatever label you use, instant, immediate, faster or real-time payments have moved to the top of the agenda at every payments-related event so far this year and are sure to be high on the agenda when Swift’s annual Sibos event lands in Singapore in October. Nearing the halfway mark for 2015, here’s a roundup of the stories so far …
Efforts to harmonise real-time payments implementation are up against the clock
The window of opportunity to harmonise international real-time payments implementations is rapidly closing as plans for domestic systems move ahead according to panellists at the EBAday conference this week.
Industry bodies look to harmonise ISO 20022 real-time payment implementation
Global interoperability of real-time payments systems will require harmonisation of market practices and standards. A group of international clearing houses, banks, vendors, payments associations and other parties have proposed setting up an activity to look at how to deliver this under the aegis of the International Standards Organisation – and set an ambitious target of collating an initial variant of ISO 20022 usage guidelines for real-time payments before the summer.
Volante lays Foundation for faster payment systems integration
Financial messaging and data integration specialist Volante Technologies has taken a step into the world of packaged products with the launch of VolPay Foundation, a development platform “designed to ease the challenges of payment integration and payment processing projects”.
EY leads latest round of new members for BIAN
The Banking Industry Architecture Network has announced six new members including ACI Worldwide, Atos, EY and Zafin. Its global network now numbers 58 banks, service providers, software vendors and academic partners.
An industry imperative: Swift FIN to ISO 20022 migration
As international regulators demand more detail from banks on payments to individuals and companies, the first order of business is to ensure compliance with mandates. Migrating Swift MT payment formats to ISO 20022 will allow the industry to shape the transformation of payment messaging standards rather than have others shape it – but there is a need to set timelines for implementation or cede control.
Regulations raise new questions about industry standards
Financial market regulations across the globe are increasingly focusing on risk management. This includes ensuring it is clear who firms are trading with and for, and confirming that firms can identify the instruments being traded. As a result, the field of reference data is increasingly held under the regulatory microscope and that lens extends to the standards used to identify financial instruments, writes Chris Pickles.
ESMA trade reporting standards “could decide” future of markets
The European Securities and Markets Association is consulting financial institutions on which messaging protocol and data formats would be best for trade reporting under MiFIR. As the timeframe for reporting comes ever closer to real-time, the consequences could be serious.
Euroclear Finland begins major overhaul for T2S
Finland’s central securities depository Euroclear Finland has just completed the first stage of a major project to completely replace its securities processing infrastructure. The CSD says the move is part of its preparations for T2S, the European Central Bank project to harmonise Europe’s post trade infrastructure.
Banks falling behind on liquidity monitoring says Swift
Fewer than a third of banks are at the implementation stage of projects implementing the Basel intraday liquidity monitoring rules that come into force next month – and most believe that industry collaboration will be needed to achieve a successful outcome.
The e-invoicing play for banks
The replacement of business processes based on paper documents with the exchange of information in electronic form is a highly beneficial global trend, and the competitiveness of Europe’s economic activity will benefit from this migration.
FIX focuses on high performance with consolidated effort
FIX Trading Community has combined all its high performance trading and market data initiatives into a single working group, emphasising the importance that high performance has in the FIX family of standards. The next generation of the FIX Protocol will fully support high performance on all levels (application, presentation, session) to offer an open standard that can replace today’s proprietary interfaces for high performance trading and market data.
Outsource your way to happiness, urges SunGard
Banks can reduce the headaches associated with cost pressure, tough new regulation, legacy business complexity and changing customer demands by outsourcing non-core areas of business. That is the idea behind two new corporate actions products launched by financial technology vendor SunGard.
Across the spectrum: ISO 20022 perspectives
The original concept of the ISO 20022 was to create a repository of data used in financial messaging to communicate business information of any type – and to be able to add any types of data that might arise in the future. There has been a lot of focus on the use of the standard in payments and securities messaging roles, this has obscured its current and potential use in other areas.
Swift’s Chris Church: making plans for Sibos
As delegates finalise their plans to attend Sibos in Boston this month, Chris Church, chief executive Americas and global head of securities at Swift, discusses what they can expect
FIX may yet be the Alpha and Omega of post-trade messaging
Capital markets participants may be able to achieve significant cost savings by making greater use of the FIX Protocol, according to a new study by post-trade specialists Alpha Omega Financial Systems.
ISO 20022: where next?
An question that continues to be asked is will the increased adoption of ISO 20022 facilitate the consolidation of payments clearing utilities and see the introduction of new services for customers? This suggests that despite the fact that ISO 20022 has been around for more than decade, confusion still exists over what it is.
BIAN makes global banking architecture push
BIAN – the Bank Industry Architecture Network – has made further progress in its efforts to promote banking system standards internationally with the US First Niagara Bank and Computer Sciences Corporation and Japan’s Nomura joining as members.
Improving data governance and ensuring data ownership
New regulations requiring financial institutions to increase the amount of data fields they have on their customer records and swingeing fines imposed when processes and data are found to be inadequate have triggered an increased focus on data governance.
CFTC calls for international swaps data sharing deal
Global standards and approaches to regulation need to focus more on removing risk from the financial system rather than on compliance – but to do so international regulators will need to harmonise their efforts and embrace technology to a much greater degree.
Swift speeds client onboarding with standards testing service
Swift has announced the availability of a cloud-based application designed to eases the client onboarding process between financial institutions and their clients. First outlined at the Sibos 2012 event in Osaka, the MyStandards Readiness Portal, is backed by some big names in the business – HSBC, Citi and Clearstream spoke at a Standards Forum session […]
Standards: the middle way
The financial services sector may be heavily regulated, but it is poorly standardised. A British Standards Institute-led initiative to drive more adoption of voluntary standards could reap considerable benefits for the industry.
Volante rolls out T2S Accelerator
Fintech vendor Volante Technologies has launched its T2S Accelerator, which is designed to help financial services firms to prepare for the T2S settlement platform.
Markit masses support for open messaging service
Financial information services company Markit is aiming to create the largest financial markets messaging community and remove barriers to cross-market communication through its open messaging initiative and supporting technology, Markit Collaboration Services.
Pressing the reset button
Whether or not the coalition government succeeds in implementing all of its proposals remain to be seen but undoubtedly the transformation of the banking sector – across all levels – is most certainly underway …
