Central Bank to participate at international ISO20022 HACKATHON event together with banking sector representatives

11-03-2021

11 March 2021, Baku: Over recent years with the expansion of application of new digital technologies, transition to the ISO20022 standard in the financial and payment systems of the leading countries has become a global trend.

Financial system’s universal interchange standard (ISO20022) allowing to automate user-to-user operation processes has started to be applied as part of the implementation of priorities arising from the ‘State Program on expansion of digital payments for 2018-2020’ approved at Decree#508 of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated 26 September 2018. To make related efforts effective, the Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan approved the ‘Actions Plan on application of the international standard ISO20022 in the infrastructure of the National Payment System of the Republic of Azerbaijan’ and  organizational and technical application work has started to bring internal information systems of National Payment System (NPS) participants, e-banking and payment services with corporate customers in line with the requirements of the ISO20022.

Along with application of the ISO20022 in the infrastructure of the NPS, the Central Bank pays special attention to similar projects and activities implemented in foreign countries. One of these events is the ISO20022 hackathon organized by the BIS Innovation Hub of the Bank for International Settlements and SWIFT on March 12-19, 2021 with the participation of about 400 representatives from around the world.

The workshops on the first day of the event will provide information on benefits and requirements of the application of ISO20022 in payments made by SWIFT ISO20022 experts to corporates and individuals, as well as presentations on best practices in the application of application programming interfaces (APIs).

Participating teams will develop international payment solutions using ISO20022 payment messages and APIs. The event will be attended by 6 teams of specialists from the Central Bank of Azerbaijan and the banking sector on payment systems and information technologies. The ISO20022 global team competition will take place on March 13-19, 2021 and will be judged by representatives of influential institutions (the Federal Reserve Bank, Payments Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, DBS, SWIFT and others).

Participation in such international events will contribute to the study of best practices, as well as the development and implementation of more innovative solutions by the NPS participants in the process of transition to ISO20022.