The interactive, free-to-use standards model for developers at fintechs, challengers, aggregators, software vendors and others across the payments industry now includes a new validation tool and 88 individual message schema.

The enhancements are set to play an important role in delivering the Payments Strategy Forum’s objective of streamlining messaging standards across the payments industry.

Message standards are an essential part of the information needed by developers to write the software that connects customers’ bank accounts with Faster Payments and enables payments to be processed. The enhancements will allow the conversion of 88 individual messages from the ISO 8583 standard currently used by the Faster Payments infrastructure to and from the ISO 20022 standard.

In addition, the Faster Payments Standards Library now has validation functionality that allows XML messages to be tested with the syntax of both the FPS ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 standards specifications. This validation process ensures that the content of messages is correct, enabling error-free messages to be created more quickly and reducing the time required for testing.

Mike Banyard, Head of Development for Faster Payments, said:

“These enhancements are the next step towards a globally recognised standard for Faster Payments messaging, with the potential to unlock further innovation across the payments industry and make real-time, 24-7 payments a reality for millions of additional users.

“The updated Faster Payments Standards Library will enable fintechs, aggregators and challengers to future-proof their existing products and reduce testing time to bring new access solutions to market faster.

“Faster Payments is setting the pace in standardisation, making it as easy as possible for developers to help users.”

The Faster Payments Standards Library is intended to be used as a guide and provide a validation tool for developers who wish to provide an interface to the Faster Payments Central Infrastructure. It is free-to-use and offers information about message standards in a simple and user-friendly format, playing an important role in simplifying and expanding access to Faster Payments.

It was the first dynamic HTML model made available through the Standards Collaboration Framework, developed by Payments UK, which supports the implementation of messaging standards across the payments industry. It currently has around 300 registered users from 38 countries and 155 firms.

Maurice Cleaves, Chief Executive of Payments UK, added:

“We are thrilled to see the continued hard work of Payments UK and collaboration with our partners in Faster Payments to launch this extended capability within the Standards Collaboration Framework.

This latest addition of the individual message schema and the validation tool will vastly improve the way developers can access standards information and is a great benefit to both participants and the operators of Faster Payments.”