Guidelines bring the industry a step closer towards making ubiquitous, instant cross-border payments a reality.
Swift, alongside major market infrastructures and global transaction banks, has created a set of guidelines which ensure that domestic payments infrastructures can adopt a common market practice, and process cross-border payments from anywhere around the world, instantly.
Swift brought 15 institutions together to collaborate as part of the Instant Payments Plus (IP+) Working Group. This collaboration has resulted in the development of global ISO 20022 market practice and implementation guidelines to enable participants to clear cross-border payments through their domestic instant payment system.
Each of the market infrastructures involved in the working group intends to align with these guidelines, which will bring the industry a step closer towards making ubiquitous, instant cross-border payments a reality.
The Working Group took into account existing usage guidelines High Value Payments Systems Plus (HVPS+) and Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) to ensure seamless integration and interoperability. This is in line with the BIS’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures recent report that highlighted the importance of market infrastructures harmonising standards globally.
Carlo Palmers, Head of Payments Solutions at Swift, said: “Financial institutions need to be able to send similar payment instructions anywhere in the world, knowing they will be treated the same way and achieve the same outcome on a consistent basis. And so we brought together this group of major stakeholders to develop ISO 20022 guidelines that will deliver this standardisation and consistency among their domestic market infrastructures."
We are very pleased that all participants have agreed to align with the guidelines and we look forward to working with other domestic instant payments systems to help make ubiquitous, instant cross-border payments a reality. Carlo Palmers, Head of Payments Solutions, Swift
Michael Knorr, Head of Payments & Liquidity Management, Global Payments at Wells Fargo, said: “While the industry is focusing on the migration of our traditional correspondent banking business to ISO 20022, it is important to look ahead to future payment types. The rapid evolution of real-time payments in many domestic markets has made it clear to us that we need to find a way to support instant payments in the cross-border space. The work of the IP+ working group is a vital step to make this a reality.”
“Being able to send payments between countries seamlessly, safely and quickly supports Payments Canada's Modernization program” said Isak Penttila, ISO 20022 Lead at Payments Canada. “The ability to interoperate in real-time with other countries is almost here, and the development of the IP+ Guidelines serves as a necessary first step. This is an exciting accomplishment for all of us in the payments industry.”
Payment acceleration and improved standardisation remain top priorities for payment service providers and their market infrastructures across the globe. Jette Simson, Head of EURO1/STEP1 Service Maintenance and Procurement, EBA CLEARING
Jette Simson, Head of EURO1/STEP1 Service Maintenance and Procurement, EBA CLEARING, commented: “Payment acceleration and improved standardisation remain top priorities for payment service providers and their market infrastructures across the globe. The IP+ Guidelines provide a building block for leveraging real-time payment systems at a cross-currency level, which along with other bridging tools, such as request-to-pay and world-wide adoption of ISO 20022, are key enablers for global payments innovation.”
The participants in the Instant Payments Plus Working Group are Banca d’Italia, BNP Paribas, CIBC, Deutsche Bank, EBA CLEARING, European Central Bank, European Payments Council (observer), the Federal Reserve, JP Morgan Chase, Lloyds Bank, Payments Canada, Societe Generale, The Clearing House, Swiss National Bank and Wells Fargo.
These guidelines are now available to download through MyStandards, regardless of Swift connectivity.
