Study Group Report

ISO/TC 68/SC 8/SG 6 Review of Currency Code Standard ISO 4217

Purpose of study group report 

This report presents the findings of the Study Group established by ISO/TC 68/SC 8 (Reference Data for Financial Services) to assess the ISO 4217 currency code standard in preparation for its upcoming Systematic Review. The group was tasked with evaluating the limitations of the standard - particularly the constrained numeric code space - and examining its impact on financial systems and related standards. The mandate also included analyzing the use of both alphabetical and numeric code variants across various applications and providing recommendations for potential next steps. 

ISO 20022: from common language to market value

In today’s financial landscape, standards are no longer perceived only as technical specifications. Rather, they increasingly shape how infrastructures, market participants and public institutions exchange information, manage risk and deliver services at scale.

The 528 RMG Practice Design Working Group of the RMG Working Group on Interoperability Between ISO 20022 and Other Protocols/Standards has released a white paper titled “Exploring Interoperability Methods of External Data Models with ISO 20022.”

The ISO/TC 68/AG 3 Best Practices Advisory Group has finalized their work on the AG3 Best Practices document.

The Application Programming Interface Standards Evaluation Group (APISEG) is being created by the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group (RMG) as a permanent ISO 20022 registration body. Its main purpose is to support the registration, development and maintenance processes of ISO 20022 API resources that are detailed in the ISO 20022 registration procedures available on ISO20022.org. The APISEG welcomes experts willing to contribute.

The Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG) is known as the global forum for Market Practice in the securities industry. The SMPG enjoys a strong representation of National Market Practice Groups (NMPGs) in all regions around the world and includes affiliations with international market infrastructures, industry, and liaison organizations.

The following is the report of the TC 68 Chair, Jim Northey, to the TC 68 Plenary, delivered at the annual meeting of the Plenary on 11 November 2022 in Oslo, Norway:

We all may be surprised to learn that the internet, with its original implementation not meant to become so widely used as the Worldwide Web that we know today, was not built with any security. However, with the increase in digital transactions over the internet, across geographies and domains, the need for secure identification of parties involved in these transactions has become more important. 

More than a decade since the 2008 financial crisis and ten years after the start of regulatory reporting, regulators globally are conducting a major overhaul of derivatives reporting rules. Reporting to Trade Repositories – stores of data of derivative transactions – is one of the three central G-20 commitments made at the 2009 Pittsburgh summit[1] together with the mandatory use of central clearing and electronic execution on exchanges or electronic platforms, to increase oversight on OTC derivatives.

The Data Point Modelling (DPM) is a data centric method (defined by ISO 5116) for organising business terms and concepts in a hierarchical order. It is used to present data in various reporting scenarios which derive  from the underlying legal requirements in a business-friendly and non-technical manner. To enable this, it employs multidimensional and semantical perspective on data to highlight the relationships between business terms, improve  understanding data, and enhance analytical capabilities.

The following are the remarks of the TC 68 Chair, Jim Northey, delivered at the opening of the recent Plenary meeting of TC 68 on 5 October 2021

Thank you for allowing me a second term to serve as TC 68 Chair. The key here is that TC 68 is a service organization to our subcommittees. In turn, our subcommittees serve the financial services industry by creating and maintaining reference data, information exchange, and information security standards.

You may have heard about quantum computers and possibly read about the future threat quantum computers might pose to cryptography. What are quantum computers, and should the financial services industry as defined by ISO TC 68 be worried? These are the questions this document will try to address. 

A number of International Standards developed by ISO TC 68 require frequent updating to elements (like codes) that exist within the standard, or the implementation of the elements of a standard, e.g., issuance of codes for securities.  A competent body which has the requisite infrastructure for ensuring the effective use of these international standards is required in both cases.  Registration authorities and maintenance agencies are used for this purpose.  Click on the header to read more....

BPoS stands for Banking Product or Service (BPoS) -- a product or service offered by a bank -- and at first glance appears to be a straightforward.  However, in examining the topic more deeply it becomes clear that there are actually many aspects to describing BPoS. This article will try to give more detailed insights to those aspects and the work done in ISO TC68/SC8 to develop ISO 21586 as guide for creating more standardized descriptions of banking services.

BIC stands for Business Identifier Code and is defined by the ISO 9362 standard that specifies the elements and structure of a universal identifier code. BIC is applicable to financial and non-financial institutions, for which such an international identifier is required to facilitate automated processing of information for financial services.  Click on the header to read more...

ISIN stands for International Securities Identification Numbering system (defined by ISO 6166) and is the global ISO standard for unique identification of financial and referential instruments, including equity, debt, derivatives and indices.  Read more...

LEI stands for Legal Entity Identifier and is defined by the ISO 17442 standard that specifies the minimum elements of an unambiguous scheme to identify the legal entities relevant to any financial transaction.  It is applicable to legal entities, which include, but are not limited to, unique parties that are legally or financially responsible for the performance of financial transactions or have the legal right in their jurisdiction to enter independently into legal contracts, regardless of whether they are incorporated or constituted in some other way (e.g. trust, partnership, contractual). It includes governmental organizations, supranationals and individuals when acting in a business capacity, but excludes natural persons.  Read more....

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number and is defined by ISO 13616 to facilitate the processing of data internationally in data interchange, in financial environments as well as within and between other industries to enable the international addressing of accounts. Read more to learn about the IBAN...

Like other areas of banking, the world of payments suffers from a high cost of regulatory compliance and outdated methods to ensure accurate and reliable data for legal entity identification. The use of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) as a key element in legal entity identity management within the payments life cycle can help solve these issues. Including LEIs in the payments life cycle provides verified, authoritative information about the exact legal entity involved in payments transactions to the parties involved in the process. The Payments Market Practice Group considers the migration to the ISO 20022 payments messaging standard, and use of the LEI within that migration, a key opportunity to rethink how and what reference data are sourced and used for legal entity identification, and to make real enhancements to such identification and messaging processes for the payments community.

This article highlights the fact that there is no single definition of the term FinTech. It is, however, an essential topic for the TC68 Community to understand. As members of TC68 study and working groups create and amend standards for the financial services industry, consideration of whether the content of the standard is flexible enough to support “FinTech” innovation will be critical. 

In the world of haves and have-nots, nearly two billion people globally lack access to the mainstream financial system. Why does this matter and what can be done to tackle the issue? Experts explain how International Standards [ISO] can help to establish transparency, rebuild trust and solve the identity crisis in the digital age.