The UK's Faster Payments scheme has released a mapping tool to enable developers to convert its existing ISO 8583 message protocol to the internationally recognised ISO 20022 standard.
The release of the new HTML resource should ease the problems faced by startups and challenger banks in interfacing to Faster Payments.
It comes in the wale of a call issued by the UK's Payments Systems Regulator in December for the introduction of a common international messaging standard for Bacs and FPS based on the ISO20022 specification as a means of increasing competition and lowering entry barriers to the market.
Mike Banyard, head of development for Faster Payments, says the free-to-use tool will play an important role in levelling the playing field by simplifying and widening access to the service: "The Faster Payments Standards Library is leading the way in this important area and blazing a trail for standardisation that is as easy as possible to access for developers and fintechs.”
The functionality is scheduled to be extended later in 2017 to allow XML messages to be tested for conformance with the syntax of both the FPS ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 standards specifications.
Banyard says that this validation process will verify the format, status and occurrence of the reference standard to ensure that the content of a message is correct, enabling error-free messages to be created more quickly and reducing the time required for testing.