Giovannini: New File Transfer Rule Book for comment

Best practice for file transfer to complement Giovannini Protocol Recommendation

Published 15 June 2007
Responding to growing demand for clear guidance on implementation of the Giovannini Protocol, SWIFT is pleased to announce the latest development in the Giovannini programme. To complement the Giovannini Protocol Recommendation published in March 2006, SWIFT has been working with senior industry representatives to develop the File Transfer Rulebook, which specifies generic rules for file construction and best practices for file transfer operations for any and all file transfers, on any network.

The objective of the File Transfer Rulebook is to eliminate the requirement for business partners, who need to send file transmissions to each other, to go through expensive and time-consuming design processes before setting up their systems. It does this by specifying header and content structures which can be replicated easily on any technology platform, and which complement the Giovannini Protocol by re-using components from the ISO standards domain.

The industry representatives who have approved the Rulebook for publication include ISSA, ISITC-IOA and SMPG, as well as Citi, Morgan Stanley, BNPP Securities Services, Euroclear, Clearstream, LCH.Clearnet, UBS, State Street, FBE, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Global Investors, Northern Trust and NCSD.

One of the earliest institutions to make use of the rulebook is Standard Bank in South Africa, who have decided to use it to design a new system for the communication of bulk payments for worker remittance processing. In the words of Standard Bank's Director of Strategy and Product Development, Arthur Cousins: "This rulebook is a timely and valuable development in the range of SWIFT's harmonisation initiatives. Our development team will save a significant amount of time and effort in putting our service together, simply by agreeing to build the file transfer as specified in the rulebook, which is simple, practical and clear."

The Rulebook is available here for open consultation until September, when the final version will be published. Comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome from the industry - please email andrew.muir@swift.com.