Corporate customers and LBBW can communicate via one of these services via SWIFT for businesses. To do this, it is necessary to sign a MACUG or SCORE master contract between the corporate clients and LBBW. One of the problems faced by companies that join SWIFT is that regardless of the BIC option (bank identity codes) they use (i.e. with their BIC or a BIC hub), they must always sign a score agreement with their banks. By default, every entry from the company to SWIFT is published with the SCO service code. Any request not to be published as a participant in SCORE FIN should be addressed to joining.generic@swift.com Reval, which uses Fides as its main corporate-to-bank connectivity solution, said: “When using the Fides BIC Agency, there is no need to sign a score agreement with the Bank. The score agreements specifically address the terms of use of a corporate BIC to connect to the bank via SWIFT. In the use of Fidesfide, the client uses the financial institution BIC of Fides, all BIC-to-Bank agreements are implemented by the Fides Agency and the client inherits all these relationships. The only paperwork a client must make for the use of BIC Fides is a mandate letter sent to the Bank, which states that he uses the Fides Agency BIC to establish a link with the Bank.
Reval sends the model mandate to the client. Positive progress has been made in the area of hot score, particularly for large companies and innovative banks. But there is still a long way to go and there is still much to be done in different areas before the masses of companies can actually see the benefits. This leads well to the single euro payment area (SEPA). SEPA is currently regulated by the banks themselves through the European Payments Council (EPC), which, with their new XML messages based on ISO 20022, have focused on interbank payment messages. The inclusion of these measures in the timetable would have provided urgent impetus, both for SCORE and for the involvement of companies in SEPA, many of whom have limited knowledge of what SEPA could do for them. But even without THE EPC, SWIFT is making progress in developing these messages, which is very welcome, because without these standards, the work will simply be too difficult for some, even with simpler connectivity. But this is only Europe, SWIFT`s main area. The recent U.S.
announcement that future payment infrastructure (in response to SEPA) will use STP800 instead of ISO 20022 seems unfathomable. This may show that SWIFT`s influence in North and South America is far too small or that it is not yet agile enough or fast enough in developing standards and product management. Options There are two basic options for connecting to the SWIFT network (SWIFTNet): more banks need to provide their services via SCORE so that more companies can manage their standard multibank relationships. This is an area that SWIFT could focus on by encouraging the role of SCORE and fileAct in more banks in order to accelerate the necessary network effect.