News

Real-time payment group releases first draft of messaging standards

The industry group aims to help countries with domestic implementations and facilitate interoperability between systems internationally.

August 12, 2015

An international group focused on improving standards for retail real-time payments has published a first draft of ISO 20022 messages to be used by the global payments industry, a news release said.

The landmark draft is the product of the ISO Real-Time Payments Group, a collaborative effort facilitated by Payments UK and comprising more than 50 global experts.

Many countries and regions are either implementing or considering real-time retail payment systems; technical documentation on ISO 20022 is a crucial step in supporting these markets on their journey, the release said.

The purpose of the work is not only to help countries with their domestic implementation, but also to facilitate interoperability between systems, enabling cross-border real-time payments in the future.

While the work of the RTPG is being reviewed across the industry, the group will be busy drafting the next set of ISO 20022 messages needed to support real-time payments, the release said.

"The Clearing House supports the effort under way to harmonize ISO 20022 messaging standards for real-time payments," said Irfan Ahmad, vice president of product development and strategy at The Clearing House. "In the short term we believe these efforts will have a tremendous industry impact with multinational companies, who can use the same formats and procedures across their operations. In the long term this effort provides the foundation for international interoperability among real-time payments systems."

Industry stakeholders are encouraged to become involved in the review process to ensure a truly representative and global standard by getting in touch with Payments UK.

Learn more about ISO 20022.