As we see the push for ISO 20022 gather momentum many questions begin to take hold and one can look at previous like projects and learn from what was considered a success and things that did not go so well. One of the ISO15022 success stories was the creation of a SWIFT Ready Gold label for technology enabling implementation. This proved a very good drive for the software industry and assisted the financial firms to learn about the requirements of the message standard, how to implement and then use it.

At a recent SOFA conference there was dozens of vendors all selling translation software and with ISO 20022 on their lips so there appears to be already some tacit approval and a Gold Label will clearly hold plenty of interest for them.  Vendors---Brown Brothers Harriman/Infomediary for one, Volante for another---are rolling out conversion solutions between MT and MX messages.  So what does Swift think about this? 

SWIFT say "there's nothing specific for translation at this point" but  Infomediary and Volante already have translation products. If Swift doesn't want to recognize them yet is it just a matter of time? After all it's not as if they don't exist!  I believe Infomediary and Volante both have SWIFTReady Gold Labels for some of their products, so they're not new to the game and must be hopeful that SWIFT creates an ISO 20022 Ready Gold label. This would surely establish demand in the market pulling in competing vendors. 

So far SWIFT have not stated that there will be an ISO 20022 Ready Gold label or if it will supersede or replace ISO15022. However, history tells us that this is probably only a time issue and that ISO 20022 will come out of the shadows into the full Ready Gold light of day.