Basic documents
- ISO 20022 XML message standards
ISO, the International Organisation for Standardisation, is the world’s developer of global standards. ISO combines the expertise of representatives from all sectors. ISO has also worked on modelling financial messages. This is set out in ISO Standard 20022. This standard provides a methodology for defining business processes and the related data elements.
- SEPA Data Format
The realisation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) requires agreement on a common set of data to be exchanged in a common syntax. The SEPA Data Formats as specified by the European Payments Council for the exchange of SEPA payments like direct debits and credit transfers represent such a common data set, respectively.
The SEPA Data Formats are based on the global ISO 20022 XML message standards.
Benefits
The international usage of ISO 20022 offers market participants diverse benefits, especially in the area of electronic interfaces:
- The international application of ISO 20022 offers market participants various advantages, particularly in regard to electronic interfaces:
- The possibility to display complex order types
- Uniform formats (less complex development, maintenance and upkeep in regard to the software package)
- Standardized validation, i.e. the same order quality can be used with all financial institutions. This increases flexibility, e.g. when working with multiple financial institutions
- Uniform status and error codes (simpler communication with support representatives, independent of software producer or financial institution)
- Transparent customer references (with more characters than used today) enable the automation of creditor and debtor data
- Fewer processing errors (returns) as a result of uniform format standards
- Support of the SEPA schemes used in Europe, as well as the ISO 20022 standard used
- Reduction of the current inadequacies, such as the large number of different record types for DTA and EZAG (including different field lengths), different parameters and processing rules for submitting orders or the different format validation, status and error messages.
