Financial institutions and technology providers have been urged to help shape how a global standard for the exchange of electronic payments data should be implemented in UK payments infrastructure.
Retail payments authority Pay.UK has opened a consultation on proposals concerning the adoption of the global standard ISO20022. It enables data to be exchanged in a structured form using standard codes and, at its most basic level, in a way which can help to identify the purpose of a payment and the identity of entities involved in a transaction.
Implementation of the standard is seen as central to the smooth operation of 'new payments architecture' (NPA) in the UK, which Pay.UK has been tasked with overseeing the design and implementation of.
Pay.UK said it intends to adopt the standard in such a way that it will enable end-to-end tracking and tracing of payments. It also said additional information will be able to be exchanged alongside basic payment information, such as an invoice number, payroll reference, email address or website addresses. Further enhancements could see payments metadata exchanged based on the ISO20022 standard to improve fraud profiling, according to the consultation paper.
Pay.UK said it intends for its adoption of ISO20022 to align with the Bank of England's existing work in implementing ISO20022.
Kate Frankish, director of standards and strategy at Pay.UK, said: "This is a unique opportunity to make the UK’s payment systems work more efficiently for everyone that uses them and we welcome views that will help us shape and define the adoption of standards and rules into the new payments architecture."
The consultation is open to feedback until 31 March. Pay.UK said it will publish findings and conclusions from the consultation in the second half of this year.
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