Overview

The Simulation Testing and Qualification Service (STaQS) is SWIFT’s new shared platform for testing compliance of messages against published standards specifications, market practice rules, and regulatory requirements. The service reduces individual testing efforts for financial institutions and software providers. It also ensures more consistent implementation of standards, leading to significant cost and risk reduction for the industry.

When implementing new message standards, financial institutions and software providers are faced with cost and time pressure to test their systems for compliance with rules imposed on them either by regulators or by market practice. They also have to find counterparties ready to test with them, with the inherent risk of exposing their applications’ teething problems to the market.

Available to registered SWIFT customers and partners, this testing service enables you to test and improve your products and applications before launching them on the market. It provides a robust testing and qualification framework, building on a validation engine, a counterparty simulator and a comprehensive set of test cases and test messages. It eases the implementation of new standards and the demonstration of compliance with market practice and regulation. SWIFT’s partners can also use it to qualify their products for the SWIFTReady labels.

By using the Simulation Testing and Qualification Service, you avoid the need to find customers or counterparties that are ready to test with you. You can test at your own pace, as the service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This service saves you the time and effort required to build testing tools, cases, and messages. SWIFT’s reach, combined with the automated and robust qualification process offered by the Simulation Testing and Qualification Service, will lead to more consistent implementations of message standards across the financial industry, as well as increased interoperability and reduced costs.