The Bank of England (The Bank) has plans to develop a standardised data platform for ISO 20022 data.

Project Keystone, which is part of a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub London Centre initiative, will explore how technology can improve the analytical use of the data standard.

The move comes after BIS last year published a new set of harmonised ISO 20022 data requirements.

The organisation said at the time that while the increased adoption of the standard provides a "major opportunity" for payments systems to improve their interoperability, this would not be realised if jurisdictions implementing it are doing so in "inconsistent ways".

As part of the initiative, The Bank will work on two modules: the first aims to address the complexities of handling the ISO 20022 data structure and the associated data storage requirements, while the second will provide analysis based on the data.

The central bank aims to create an off-the-shelf component that payment system operators can integrate into their own systems.

The increased use of ISO 20022 standards for payment messages in Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems means many central banks will adopt the protocol in the coming years.

As of 2022, 93 per cent of payment system operators have already either implemented ISO 20022 or are working to implement it in their systems, according to a BIS survey.

BIS says that the platform's support of analytics capabilities could accelerate the ability of payment system operators to use the "enriched data" contained within the ISO 20022 message scheme for greater understanding of "economic conditions, system liquidity, and compliance with ISO 20022 standards".

Meanwhile, the standardised platform will allow future users to create and share additional analytics capabilities within the central banking community.

FStech has approached The Bank of England for further comment.

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