The last few years have seen a steady increase in the level of community engagement and discussion around the adoption of ISO 20022.
TARGET2 went live in 2007 using ISO 20022 for cash management. Since then, many European banks have joined SEPA, where ISO 20022 messages are the recommended format for all cross-border payments. We are also seeing a growing number of initiatives in countries such as France, Germany and the US to abandon domestic standards in favour of ISO 20022.
In the securities world, T2S announced their intention to go live in 2012 using ISO 20022. Since then, Euroclear have also announced that their new platform will go live offering a mix of ISO 15022 and ISO 20022 messages, and have shown their commitment to ISO 20022 by taking the lead in the creation of new standards to complete the gaps in the securities space.
The adoption of ISO 20022 is also extending beyond Europe to Asia and the US. Jasdec and DTCC now both have concrete plans to offer ISO 20022 in addition to their proprietary standards. And we are seeing growing interest from other entities such as STRATE in South Africa.
But perhaps one of the clearest indications of the success of the new standard is that, for the first time, so many standardisation bodies are working together towards a common goal that will enable ISO 20022 to become a global multi-syntax standard that will continue to increase automation and lower both risk and cost in the industry.
SWIFT, in its role as the guardian of the ISO 20022 standard (the ‘Registration Authority' role which SWIFT formally began in 2004), is at the heart of the development and maintenance activity with more than 200 messages delivered and over 300 in the pipeline. We have had submissions from more than 15 different organizations and are seeing a keen interest from a growing number of firms (financial institutions and vendors) to integrate the repository components within their own applications and services.
Within the Standards Department at SWIFT, we have more than twenty full-time resources developing, maintaining and supporting the implementation of ISO 20022 with twenty-one active development projects underway. In addition, we continue to dedicate three full-time resources to the Registration Authority (RA). Measures currently under review by the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group will allow the RA to process and review submissions more quickly and continue to ensure compliance with the ISO 20022 methodology and technical specifications as models and components are added to the repository. These new measures will help create efficiencies in the registration process and also ensure that the RA will be able to absorb the increased workload from the large pipeline, at least through the end of 2010.
New adopters are also seeking advice from a technical point of view on how best to extend the use of ISO 20022 to serve the needs of their local communities. The Registration Management Group will soon receive a recommendation from its Technical Support Group on how best to achieve this.
The pending application for XBRL to become part of the ISO family (and eventually join the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group) serves to highlight that ISO 20022's influence is now extending beyond the transaction lifecycle into the accounting domain. Alignment of our respective elements and components to ensure the interoperability of data is another important step in the journey of ISO 20022 community adoption.
We will continue to count on the support of the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group as we strengthen the foundation of ISO 20022 and continue to serve as its ‘guardian'.