Faster Payments takes important step towards ISO 20022 with new interactive standards model for developers

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  • Free-to-use HTML resource is an important step in the drive towards adoption of the globally-recognised ISO 20022 standard

  • Latest developments build on extensive work by Faster Payments Scheme to map its existing ISO 8583 message protocol to ISO 20022

London – A new, interactive, free-to-use standards model for developers working for fintechs, challengers, aggregators, software vendors and others across the payments industry has been launched today by Faster Payments, the UK’s 24/7 real-time payment service.

Message standards are an essential part of the information needed by developers to write the software that connects customers’ bank accounts with Faster Payments, enabling payments to be processed. By providing the recommended mapping of the ISO8583 messages used by the current Faster Payments infrastructure to and from the globally recognised ISO20022 standard, the Faster Payments Standards Library will play an important part in delivering the Payments Strategy Forum’s objective of streamlining messaging standards across the payments industry.

The mapping work led by Faster Payments, with collaboration from Payments UK’s Standards team, is also in line with the proposed remedy set out by the Payment Systems Regulator in their market review into the ownership and competitiveness of infrastructure provision.

Mike Banyard, Head of Development for Faster Payments, commented:

“Demand for the real-time payments offered by Faster Payments has never been higher and so we are delighted to be able to launch this important new resource to help the developers that are making real-time a reality for more customers than ever.

“Work on standards may not be glamorous, but they are the bread and butter of how our world-leading service works. The Faster Payments Standards Library is leading the way in this important area and blazing a trail for standardisation that is as easy as possible to access for developers and fintechs.”

The Faster Payments Standards Library is free-to-use and offers information about message standards in a more user-friendly way playing an important role in levelling the playing field by simplifying and widening access to Faster Payments. It is the first dynamic HTML model made available through the Standards Collaboration Framework, developed by Payments UK, which supports the implementation of messaging standards across the payments industry.

Maurice Cleaves, Chief Executive of Payments UK, said:

“We are delighted to see the hard work of Payments UK and our partners to develop the Standards Collaboration Framework is starting to bear fruit, with this latest addition of the Faster Payments Standards Library. By drawing upon our leading standards expertise, Payments UK is facilitating all industry stakeholders in developing and accessing standards. Improving the way in which this is done is a win-win for all concerned.”

The innovative Standards Collaboration Framework provides the capability for the industry to future-proof standards requirements with a single, authoritative resource. It ensures rigorous version control, making it possible for relevant industry stakeholders to obtain the up-to-date standards documentation crucial to support the UK payments infrastructure.

The Faster Payments Scheme is the UK’s 24/7 real-time payment service which enables mobile, internet, telephone and standing order payments to move quickly and securely. The Faster Payments Standards Library is intended to be used as a guide for those who wish to provide an interface to the Faster Payments Central Infrastructure which uses ISO 20022 messages.

The Faster Payments Standards Library functionality will be extended later in 2017 to allow XML messages to be tested for conformance with the syntax of both the FPS ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 standards specifications. This validation process will verify the format, status and occurrence of the reference standard to ensure that the content of a message is correct, enabling error-free messages to be created more quickly and reducing the time required for testing. 

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