BIS Outlines Next Steps to Promote Adoption of ISO 20022

A Bank for International Settlements (BIS) committee has announced the next steps it will take to promote the adoption of its harmonized ISO 20022 data requirements for enhanced processing of cross-border payments.

“This announcement should provide clarity to industry regarding the medium-term governance and maintenance of the harmonized data requirements during the period of global transition to the ISO 20022 messaging standard,” the BIS Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) said in a Tuesday (Jan. 7) press release. “These steps also provide impetus to industry-led efforts to develop ISO 20022 market practice guidelines for cross-border fast payments.”

The CPMI will maintain the harmonized ISO 20022 data requirements at least through the end of 2027 and, to encourage global adoption of these requirements, will establish a joint panel with members from the ISO 20022 global market practice groups and organize semi-annual meetings starting early this year, according to the release.

The committee will also encourage the industry to develop global ISO 20022 market practice guidelines for instant payments based on the harmonized data requirements, saying it views the development of such guidelines as “a way to make cross-border payments safe and efficient,” per the release.

A third step the CPMI will take is to continue engaging with payment system operators and payment service providers and encouraging them to implement the harmonized data requirements by the end of 2027, the release said.

Interlinking fast payments systems (FPS) across different jurisdictions could enhance cross-border payments, making them low cost, fast, easy to access and transparent, the BIS said in October when announcing the CPMI’s publication of two reports offering insights into facilitating the interlinking and interoperability of payments systems.

“The growing use of application programming interfaces (APIs) and the adoption of the ISO 20022 financial messaging standard have opened up new possibilities to facilitate payment system interlinking,” BIS said at the time in a press release.

The ISO 20022 messaging standard, set for adoption in March by Federal Reserve banks, has emerged as a potentially transformative standard for improving data richness and fostering interoperability, PYMNTS reported in December.

The standard aims to reduce friction and pave the way for innovations in the way money moves globally.