XML Management: Releasing the potential of the ISO 20022 standard

Over 400 participants tuned in to the gtnews webinar “Future of XML Payment Management: Challenges, Evolution and Benefits” on March 11th, 2014. The 45-minute session provided insight why the ISO 20022 standard and XML are gaining traction well beyond the SEPA area and how their benefits can further be improved through the utilization of XML management tools.

From painful silos to a global standard

The webinar started with a presentation by Harri Rantanen from SEB, a co-convenor of the Common Global Implementation group (CGI) with insight to share on the history and current state of ISO 20022.
He introduced the reduction of silo formats and the creation of one common process for payments as the main benefit of the standardization: “ISO 20022 provides the possibility to focus on payment processing instead of integration technology”.
To overcome the painful history of different standards, the CGI brings vendors, service providers, banks, and end users to the same table, ensuring that “everybody speaks the same language”.

XML management: efficient compliance with the standard

“XML messages surround us everywhere,” XMLdation product manager Juha Hakomäki summarized his following presentation on XML management.  While the ISO standard and its further definition in the CGI group lay out a roadmap, challenges are abound: version and change management, country- or bank-specific rules as well as technical challenges.
Hakomäki presented centralized XML management as the solution: a framework for managing transaction specifications and process definitions based on XML messages.
XML management provides developers with easy access to rule definitions, version history, and generators for program code or test files. Users are able to validate XML messages and make use of a simulator’s response messages and a well-maintained knowledge base provides critical documentation resources.

Towards a fully managed XML workflow

To conclude, XMLdation CEO Juha Keski-Nisula gave a brief introduction to the XMLdation Service offering.
“We are on the way to total XML management”, Keski-Nisula described the XMLdation roadmap: in the years to come, ISO 20022 and XML messages will increasingly be used for the entire global financial value chain, from e-invoicing to trade finance, and all the functionalities described earlier will eventually be covered by XMLdation Service – myXML.

A recording of the webinar is available below.