The Ukrainian National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC), the financial authority in the Ukraine, has formally endorsed the ‘ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter’.

Announced in October 2015, the Charter is an industry driven framework enabling SWIFT to work with the financial market infrastructure (FMI) community to facilitate the rollout of ISO 20022 and provide technology to promote harmonisation. The Charter, which is based on four principles, serves as a way for FMIs to confirm support for SWIFT’s recommendations and willingness to implement the principles into their own ISO 20022 initiatives.

"It’s time for the Ukraine to actively move towards the implementation of new standards, which have proved their effectiveness in other markets,” says Timur Khromaev, Chairman of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission. “Implementation of ISO 20022 will enable easier integration with other international settlement systems and provide foreign players with easier access to the Ukraine’s capital markets.”

The four principles of the Charter require FMIs to:

1. Share information between FMIs about ISO 20022 usage;
2. Adhere to global market practice where it exists and contribute to new global market practice initiatives;
3. Introduce stricter message version control and release management process and timing;
4. Publish up-to-date information about standards on a common platform, including market practice compliance, messages and versions used and message release timeline.

“As ISO 20022 implementations proliferate globally, variability in the ways in which ISO 20022 is deployed, threatens to undermine its value as a means to reduce cost and risk and enable interoperability,” adds Patrik Neutjens, ISO 20022 Programme Director at SWIFT, “The challenge posed by this fragmentation cannot be addressed piecemeal; only co-ordinated action at an industry level can provide a solution. We welcome the NSSMC to the Charter and look forward to providing the necessary guidance and best practices to optimise their integration into the international securities markets via ISO 20022.”