skip to main content

International Standards and B2B Payments

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Did you stream any movies or TV shows last weekend? If so, you benefited from an international standard for video file compression that makes streaming feasible. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) shared an EmmyOff-site link for this engineering feat in 2008.

All kinds of ISO standards, based on input from experts around the world, simplify our lives at home and at work. Standards cover risk management, information security, electronic communications, data exchange, quality management, and weights and measures, among many topics.

In the payments industry, for example, ISO 4217 establishes internationally recognized codes for currency, like USD for the US dollar, EGP for the Egyptian pound, and THB for the Thai baht. ISO 20022, first recognized by the standards organization in 2004, enables the structured exchange of data between financial institutions, with the capability to exchange hundreds of data elements that provide detail about a payment. This international standard has been activated within RTP from the Clearing House and within the FedNow Service, instant payment systems that operate among financial institutions.

ISO 20022 has yet to be implemented in the myriad accounts payable and accounts receivable systems that US businesses use today. And that, as I described in my October 2 post, contributes to the Tower of Babel problem in business payments. To simplify implementation of ISO 20022, the Business Payments CoalitionOff-site link (BPC), comprised of some 500 entities working to promote greater adoption of electronic business-to-business (B2B) payments, remittance

Read More – Source