The American Bankers Association is supporting the Federal Reserve's plan to migrate the Fedwire Funds Services to the ISO 20022 message standard in a single day - but says it has "serious concerns" about a lack of detail on testing strategy and requirements for the move.
Responding to the Fed's call for comment, the ABA says it supports a big bang implementation strategy for the ISO 20022 migration in November 2023, suggesting one of two non-holiday weekends during the month.
The association also says it is "essential" to ensure the move happens on the same day as The Clearing House's Chips service migrates to ISO 20022.
While agreeing to the timeline, the ABA says banks need a "detailed implementation plan as soon as possible" so that they can set up teams and allocate resources to begin preparing and testing.
Says the letter: "The Board and Reserve Banks should issue a technology roadmap that establishes a series of key dates and milestones related to the system requirements and testing procedures."
The Fedwire migration is just one of several major projects facing US banks, which also have to contend with Swift's ISO 20022 migration in November 2022 and the FedNow real-time payments system going live in 2023.
Therefore, with "bank resources already being pushed to the limit", the ABA is asking the Fed to consider pushing back plans to extend the operating hours of Fedwire and the National Settlement Service and make the ISO 20022 migration the "highest priority".