The Upcoming Revision of ISO 20022

Required knowledge

• Knowledge of the ISO 20022 standard
• Prior knowledge of data structures and formats

As we all know, the only constant is change. This is also true of the 20022 ISO standards, which must be reviewed regularly. Usually, the committees responsible for the standard in question decide every five years whether it should be revised, i.e., amended or expanded. When the systematic review of ISO 20022 came round in 2018, the standards community felt that no revision was needed. Now, after the global triumph of ISO 20022, it is clear that many questions about current and future challenges still remain unanswered. A study group investigated this and suggested some areas that merit closer examination in the near future.

Changes Essential

It is already clear that an expansion of the application in the current version is possible and that it requires some technical adjustments. This is being addressed by the Technical Support Group (TSG), which is headed by the author of this article. How the “standards envelope” should bring together the “Business Application Header” and the ISO 20022 messages such as pacs.008 is one of these areas. Another issue is whether and how the use of JSON as a data format should be regulated. JSON is ubiquitous in application development today and features in particular in the API world. Since this year, it has been possible to register API resources under ISO 20022, automatically raising the question of whether it is not also necessary to establish principles for efficient use of JSON. This is an important addition for the application of the standard. The TSG has until the end of 2023 to discuss and, where appropriate, implement these and other technical issues. The ISO 20022 Registration Authority (RA), which is responsible for the standard, will make the decision. It will publish the results of discussions on an ongoing basis on iso20022.org, as well as those for the API resources submission process.

API, JSON, and Other Challenges

A working group headed by a representative of the ISO member country China is responsible for the actual review process, i.e., editing the eight-part standard, which consists of several hundred pages. The group was created specifically for this and is handling the process from the first step to the final publication. The potential new version is expected in 2025. This working group expects an extremely demanding program, with questions on expanding the modeling of messages and API resources. The issue of how the standard will deal with markup languages (e.g., XML and JSON) is also on the agenda. XML and ASN.1 and their application are currently included in the standard. If JSON is to be integrated, this will likely involve a lengthy process, especially as this data format is far less established in practice than XML. Accordingly, other options should be considered. Better integration of other ISO standards in the ISO 20022 meta model is also a topic to be discussed. One other challenge is developing a concept that makes it possible to make changes to messages or parts thereof more quickly without the entire user community having to implement a new version of the standard. Concepts from the card world could be used as blueprints. Last but not least, it must be considered how the RA will continue the considerable work associated with the increasingly widespread use of ISO 20022 as efficiently and effectively as possible. The revision should also provide answers to this.

The Swiss standards community figures prominently in all committees relating to ISO 20022. This is primarily because it is a pioneer in this area and the use of ISO 20022 messages has been firmly established in Switzerland for many years, especially in payments. Sooner or later, all version changes thus have a significant impact on the Swiss Payment Standards, local market practices, and ultimately on what is offered, applied, and implemented by all market participants. 

Martin Walder
Head Billing & Payments Standards, SIX