I've written before about ISO 20022 standard messages for corporate-bank communication. Over the past eighteen months, the global banks have ramped up their implementations of the new standard, which they are systematically rolling out to corporate customers.
Now the global banks are working on a "Common Global Implementation" (CGI) of ISO 20022, agreeing on common usage and interpretation of a subset of the ISO 20022 message fields. They define that subset of the fields as the collaborative space, while also agreeing that certain fields are for bank-specific information that banks will use for value-added services, and they define those fields as the competitive space.
The fact that there is a substantial collaborative space mapped out that does not vary helps the corporate customer that must maintain connectivity with multiple banks, and the competitive space allows the banks to differentiate.
This mutually-agreed definition of the boundaries between the competitive and collaborative spaces is the result of an unprecedented level of collaboration among global banks, with key corporate users, ERP vendors, and SWIFT participating as well. This cooperation has the potential to play an important role in helping corporate ERP users to streamline and consolidate treasury operations across all of their banking relationships.
In the spirit of this collaboration, I would like to introduce you to Mark Sutton, Head of Client Integration Consulting at HSBC. Mark has written a Streamlining Electronic Payments & Cash Management Using ISO 20022 XML Version 3 about ISO 20022 that I'm sure you'll find informative.
