ISO 20022 Financial Messaging Standard Neither a Tower of Babel nor an Esperanto

Single model with multiple syntax
The ISO 20022 standard is divided into five parts. Unusually, parts three to five cover technical specifications, which are not subject to the rigorous requirements for approval needed for international standards.


This, the initiators of 20022 felt, would allow the messaging syntax and modeling techniques to evolve more easily in line with market developments. This foresight became very important when different segments of the financial services business began to realize that a single message syntax was not only undesirable, but could potentially have a negative impact in certain business areas.
SWIFT and FPL, supported by VISA International and FpML, submitted a proposal to the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group (RMG) to include support for alternative message syntax, with an eye towards interoperability between syntaxes.
The recommendation on interoperability proposed that domain specific syntax could be specified as part of business justifications. The request would need to include specific justification for the domain specific syntax. The submitter requesting the domain specific syntax is also required to demonstrate translation between the ISO 20022 model and the alternative syntax. Support for domain specific syntax was approved by the RMG in June 2008.