ISO 20022 Universal financial industry message scheme
Frequently asked questions
Who should be interested in ISO 20022?
Mostly financial institutions that want to streamline their communication infrastructure and associated costs by opting for a single, common "language" for all financial communications, whatever the business domain, the communication network and the counterparty (other financial institutions, clients, suppliers and market infrastructures). ISO 20022 is targeted at these standards initiatives that are generally driven by communities of users looking for more cost-effective communications to support specific financial business processes with a particular view of facilitating interoperability with other existing protocols.
What is ISO 20022?
ISO 20022 - Universal financial industry message scheme (which used tobe also called "UNIFI") is the international standard that defines the ISO platform for the development of financial message standards. Its business modelling approach allows users and developers to represent financial business processes and underlying transactions in a formal but syntax-independent notation. These business transaction models are the "real" business standards. They can be converted into physical messages in the desired syntax. At the time ISO 20022 was developed, XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) was already the preferred syntax for e-communication. Therefore, the first edition of ISO 20022 proposes a standardized XML-based syntax for messages. The standard was developed within the Technical Committee TC68 - Financial Services of ISO - the International Organization for Standardization.
What is the scope of ISO 20022?
The first focus of ISO 20022 is on international (cross-border) financial communication between financial institutions, their clients and the domestic or international 'market infrastructures' involved in the processing of financial transactions. There is, however, a strong opportunity to use ISO 20022 for the development of new domestic financial messages as well, thereby streamlining all communications for financial institutions.
Why was ISO 20022 developed?
The need for a ISO 20022 standard arose in the early 2000’s with the widespread growth of Internet Protocol (IP) networking, the emergence of XML as the 'de facto' open technical standard for electronic communications and the appearance of a multitude of uncoordinated XML-based standardization initiatives, each having used their own "XML dialect". On top of offering a commonway of using XML, the new standard shields investments from future syntax changes by proposing a common business modelling methodology (using UML - Universal Modelling Language) to capture, analyze and syntax-independently describe the business processes of potential users and their information needs.
What is included in the ISO 20022 standard?
The standard itself describes the development methodology, the registration process and the organization of the central financial repository that contains the ISO 20022 messages and their components. The ISO 20022 standard consists of six parts:
- Part 1: Overall methodology and format specifications for inputs and output from the ISO 20022 Repository
- Part 2: Roles and responsibilities of the registration bodies
- Part 3: ISO 20022 modelling guidelines (Technical Specification)
- Part 4: ISO 20022 XML design rules (Technical Specification)
- Part 5: ISO 20022 reverse engineering (Technical Specification)
- Part 6: Message transport characteristics
Part 6 was published in 2009 but has not yet been implemented. Copies of the standard can be purchased from ISO at: www.iso.org.
What will ISO 20022 accomplish?
The ISO 20022 flexible framework will encourage users to build business transactions and message models under an internationally agreed upon approach, and to migrate to the use of a common XML syntax and vocabulary. In ISO 20022, the models and the derived XML outputs are stored in a central financial repository serviced by a Registration Authority. The ISO 20022 repository offers industry users and developers free access to a Data Dictionary of business and message components and a Business Process Catalogue containing models and XML schemas.
If there are no ISO 20022 messages to cover a specific transaction, standards initiatives can be launched to define new models and messages and submit the new solution for approval by the ISO 20022 registration bodies. If the messages exist in the ISO 20022 repository, but do not address all requirements of a new community, it can be agreed upon toupdate the existing models and messages and create a new version that will accommodate the needs of all.
Who handles the ISO 20022 registration process?
The ISO 20022 approval and registration process involves three kinds of registration bodies: Registration Management Group (RMG), Registration Authority (RA) and the Standards Evaluation Groups (SEGs). The RA and SEGs work together to validate and process the registration requests authorized by the RMG, according to the service levels defined in the ISO 20022 standard.
What is the role of the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group (RMG)?
Composed of senior industry experts, the RMG is the highest registration body. It is assigned overall management of the use of the standard under Technical Committee 68 - Financial Services (TC68) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It monitors the overall registration process, including the performance of the other registration bodies. It defines the scope of necessary SEGs and acts as a "court of appeal" in case of conflicts between the RA, the SEGs and the standards initiatives that want to develop ISO 20022 messages. It approves the business justifications for new messages or updates to existing messages and then allocates it to the relevant SEGs. It also gives an expert opinion on the business and operational impact of any change request that would be received by ISO to amend the ISO 20022 standard.
The RMG had its inaugural meeting in January 2005 and currently has 34 delegations from the following ISO countries and liaison organizations: Australia, Austria, Brazil,Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, The Russian federation, South Africa, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, US, Clearstream, Euroclear, European Central Bank (ECB), European Payments Council (EPC), FIX Protocol Ltd, IFX Forum, ISDA/FpML, ISITC, SIIA/FISD, SWIFT, TWIST and VISA.
Leaders of the RMG are the Convenor, Mr. Gerard Hartsink (Netherlands), and Vice Convenor, Mr. Robert Blair (US). Serving as the RMG Secretary is Mrs. Cindy Fuller of the TC68 Secretariat (cindy.fuller@x9.org).
What is the role of the ISO 20022 Standards Evaluation Groups (SEGs)?
The SEGs, composed of industry experts in specific business domains of the financial industry, have a twofold role: (1) to ensure that the proper industry groups are informed of proposed developments to ensure all business requirements will be addressed, and (2) to validate the new messages from a business perspective to ensure that what will be posted in the ISO 20022 repository by the RA really addresses the needs of future communities of users as described in the business justification accepted by the RMG in the first place.
The RMG has already defined the scope of five SEGs: ‘Payments’ and ‘Securities’ were created in 2005,'Trade Services' and 'FX' (Foreign Exchange) were created in 2006 and 'Cards and related retail financial services' was created in 2008. If required, additional SEGs can be created by the RMG to address other areas of the financial industry.
What is the role of the ISO 20022 Registration Authority (RA)?
The RA is the guardian of the ISO 20022 financial repository which contains the Data Dictionary with all business and message components, and the Business Process Catalogue with the business areas, message models and derived XML message schemas. The RA’s mission is (1) to ensure compliance of developed messages with the approved technical specifications, (2) to generate the XML schemas, and (3) to publish the financial repository and maintain www.iso20022.org on behalf of ISO. The RA cannot take any action without prior consultation and approval of either the RMG or the SEGs. SWIFT has been appointed by ISO as the ISO 20022 Registration Authority.
The ISO 20022 Registration Authority can be contacted at: iso20022ra@iso20022.org.
What is the role of the ISO 20022 Technical Support Group (TSG)?
The TSG provides technical support to the other ISO 20022 registration bodies (RMG, RA, SEGs) and the submitting organisations or communities of users, upon their request. Requests to the TSG must be sent to the TSG convenor, vice convenor and secretary by e-mail and clearly indicate the nature of the technical issue, and the advice required from the TSG.
How to become a member of the RMG, SEGs or TSG?
RMG members are nominated by 'P' (Participating) member countries and category ‘A' liaison organisations of ISO TC68 - Financial Services or one of its three subcommittees (SC2 - Security, SC4 - Securities and related financial instruments, SC7 - Core Banking). SEG and TSG members are nominated by 'P' and 'O' (Observer) member countries or any category of liaison organisations of ISO TC68 or one of its subcommittees. Nominations must be addressed to the ISO TC68 secretariat by the national standards body of the country or by the liaison organisation that the member represents. For more information about the member countries and liaison organisations of ISO TC68 and its subcommittees, please consult the TC68 page on the ISO website. Click here to download a copy of the current ISO 20022 Governance Procedures.
What is the role of the TC68/WG4?
WG4 - 'Management of ISO 20022' was created by Technical Committee 68 - Financial Services (TC68) in late 2005 to review the ISO 20022 standard.
WG10, the working group that developed the first version of the standard, deliberately wanted to wait for technology to evolve further and experience to be gained from using the ISO 20022 recipe before proposing the ISO 20022 methodology as an 'International Standard'. Therefore, the three parts of ISO 20022 that describe the methodology were issued as 'ISO Technical Specifications', a less formal type of document than an 'ISO International Standard'. ISO Technical Specifications have a limited lifetime after which they have to either be transformed into 'International Standards' or simply withdrawn. WG4 is the group that has been strengthening the ISO 20022 methodology in order to bring it to the level of International Standard.
It should be noted that WG4 is responsible for the standard itself, i.e. the recipe to develop financial message standards, while the RMG is responsible for the use of this recipe by financial standards initiatives. The two roles are different, the former is methodological and the latter operational.
What is the difference between a ‘candidate ISO 20022 message’ and a ‘ISO 20022 message’?
Once the RMG has approved the development of a set of messages, these messages can be referred to as 'candidate ISO 20022 messages'. They will keep this name during the development and until they are reviewed and approved by the SEG(s) for publication in the financial repository. They then become 'ISO 20022 messages' (a synonym of 'ISO 20022 compliant messages').
A candidate message that is rejected by the SEG(s) cannot be called a ‘ISO 20022 message’, nor can it any longer be called a 'candidate ISO 20022 message'.
What were the first ISO 20022 messages?
On 14 September 2005, the Payments SEG approved a set of four Customer to Bank Payment Initiation messages as the first ISO 20022 compliant messages.
Who can propose ‘candidate ISO 20022 messages’?
Any community of users or organization can use the ISO 20022 recipe to develop 'candidate ISO 20022 messages'. The registration process is described on this website.
What character encoding is supported by ISO 20022?
The ISO 20022 standard uses XML 1.0. XML 1.0supports UTF-8, UTF-16 and many more. ISO 20022 has decided to restrict to only UTF-8 based on the fact that it is the most efficient (length-wise) way to transport characters. UTF-16 always requires 2 bytes, UTF-8 uses for the most common characters (such as Basic Latin) only a single byte. Only for exotic characters UTF-8 becomes lengthier, but these characters are rarely required in ISO 20022 messages.
What is the difference between a 'message' and a 'message definition'?
ISO 20022 defines a Message Definition as the "formal description of the structure of a Message" while a Message is a "set of structured information exchanged between Business Actors". The Message Definition is the message format while the Message is the instance of the message format which is actually transmitted on the wire. On this website, the term 'message' is often used to designate both the message format and the instance.
What's the difference between a MUG (Message Usage Guide) and a MIG (Message Implementation Guide)?
A MUG is an ISO 20022 document that complements the ISO 20022 Message Definition Report (MDR) when there is a need for further explanation about how to use the message definition(s) in compliance with the standard. MDRs and MUGs are published in the Catalogue of ISO 20022 messages.
A MIG is a document describing the specific way of using ISO 20022 message(s) in a particular context, usually by a specific community of users. MIGs are not official ISO 20022 documents. There is one MUG per message definition while there can be many MIGs. All MIGs are expected to fully comply with the related MDR and MUG. For more information about MDR, MUG and MIGs, download the description prepared by the RMG.