June 15, 2015 - SWIFT announces that its Standards Consulting Services team has delivered over 150 ISO 20022 consulting projects to more than 70 clients across the globe.

Based on this experience, and given the growing market interest in ISO 20022, SWIFT is now issuing best practice implementation guidelines, which complement its Standards Consulting Services.

ISO 20022 has become the financial industry's preferred standard, driven mostly by market infrastructures. Currently, there are 200 initiatives around the world that have either implemented, or are planning to implement, ISO 20022. These include SEPA, TARGET2-Securities, TARGET2, EBA EURO1/STEP1, DTCC and ASX. Each of these projects has a downstream impact on the financial institution participants.

"The impetus for market infrastructures to use ISO 20022 comes from several internal and external factors, such as regulatory reform, market integration, automation and cost efficiency, international expansion, new services or replacement of legacy systems," says Andrew Muir, Head of Standards Operations, SWIFT. "ISO 20022 is an opportunity for financial institutions to respond to a rapidly changing market landscape, and it carries the longer term cost benefits of consolidation of external channels and data formats."

As a part of SWIFT's effort to support the community, the co-operative has published a Best practice guideline for successful implementation of ISO 20022 for financial institutions.

The paper offers market participants the latest information about ISO 20022, including growth drivers, adoption approaches taken by market infrastructures, implementation approaches being adopted by the financial institution community, and best practice guidelines.

Designed specifically for financial institutions as they implement ISO 20022, the paper outlines a step-by-step approach for:

• 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;

• Ensuring the right balance across business and IT internal stakeholders.

These best practice guidelines assist with both the implementation of standards initiatives and the adoption of market practices, complementing SWIFT's growing range of tools to enable ISO 20022 adoption, which includes consulting services to support implementation projects.

"The adoption of ISO 20022 is growing rapidly, particularly with market infrastructures," says Patrik Neutjens, ISO 20022 Programme Director, Standards, SWIFT. "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."