The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is setting up a task force on defining common features of cross-border payment service levels.
BIS's Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) has been working on a multiyear programme on improving cross-border payments since Saudi Arabia made it a priority of its G20 presidency.
The latest stage sees the committee call on managers of service level agreements (SLAs) and payment schemes to nominate senior representatives to a newly established task force focused on ensuring consistency between agreements.
Starting in early 2022, the task force will meet every six to eight weeks, and its findings will feed into the development of a service level template that stakeholders can use as a starting point when establishing agreements. It will not suggest any specific service levels but will reflect how the elements relevant for cross-border payments can be addressed consistently.
Agreed service levels, relevant for both wholesale and retail payments, can cover a set of functions, procedures and arrangements that make it possible to execute a payment order between different entities in the cross-border payment value chain.
Examples include the interlinking of payment systems or correspondent banking processes. Schemes can cover card payments, credit transfers, direct debits, electronic and mobile money transactions, and remittances.
Meanwhile, BIS has published a bulletin called 'Interoperability between payment systems across borders' investigating the various technical, semantic and business system compatibility requirements.