The Bank of England has partnered with the BIS Innovation Hub to develop a standardised data analytics platform focused on ISO 20022 data, aiming to enhance the analytical use of this increasingly important financial messaging standard.

Known as Project Keystone, the initiative has already delivered two modules. The first addresses the complexities of managing the ISO 20022 data structure and the associated storage requirements, while the second module provides data-driven analytics. The project reflects the growing adoption of ISO 20022 for payment messages in real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems, with 93 per cent of payment system operators worldwide either having implemented or working to implement the protocol, according to a 2022 BIS Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) survey.

ISO 20022 is set to become the global standard for cross-border and domestic payments by 2025, with migration overseen by Swift. Its adoption is expected to improve interoperability between payment systems, but only if implemented consistently across jurisdictions. Project Keystone aims to address this by creating an off-the-shelf component that payment system operators can integrate into their own systems, unlocking the value of richer payments data.

The Bank of England says Keystone’s analytics capabilities could accelerate operators’ ability to use enriched ISO 20022 data for deeper insight into economic conditions, system liquidity, and compliance. The platform is also intended to enable future users to create and share additional analytics tools within the central banking community, supporting broader innovation and collaboration.

This initiative comes as part of a wider trend in the financial sector towards harnessing advanced data analytics and standardisation to improve transparency, efficiency, and regulatory compliance in payments infrastructure. It also follows the Bank of England’s recent renewal of its partnership with Accenture, focused on modernising the RTGS programme to enhance resilience, accessibility, and functionality for wholesale payments in the UK. The RTGS system underpins the UK’s financial system, processing an average of £800 billion in transactions daily and playing a central role in monetary policy and financial stability.

Project Keystone is expected to play a key role in the next phase of payments innovation, supporting central banks and payment system operators as they adapt to the demands of a rapidly evolving global payments landscape.

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