ISO/TC 68, Technical Committee 68 on Banking, Securities and other Financial Services, is a technical committee formed within the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...

(ISO), of Geneva, Switzerland, tasked with developing and maintaining

international standards international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...

covering the areas of

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...

, and other

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

. As the

standards organization A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpr ...

under ISO responsible for the development of all international financial services standards, ISO/TC 68 plays a key role in the development and adoption of new technologies in the

brokerage A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

and

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

industries. Many of its current work projects involve developing

ecommerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managemen ...

standards such as better online security for

financial transaction A financial transaction is an agreement, or communication, between a buyer and seller to exchange goods, services, or assets for payment. Any transaction involves a change in the status of the finances of two or more businesses or individuals. A ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

standards for financial transactions and standards to reduce the cost and delays of international financial transactions. The membership of ISO/TC 68, consists of more than 30 organizations assigned by participating national standards bodies plus additional international standards development organizations that work collaboratively toward global financial services standards development.

Technical Subcommittees of ISO/TC 68

Within TC 68 there are, at present, three technical subcommittees, or SC's: ISO/TC 68/SC 2 (Financial Services, security), ISO/TC 68/SC 8 (Reference data for financial services), and ISO/TC 68/SC 9 (Information exchange for financial services). Subcommittees prepare and manage international standards within specific areas of concentration. Subcommittees review existing standards once every five years to update them. New standards are developed by subcommittees under the New Work Item process.

Standards Development Process

New Work Items are proposed by three or more countries that are members of ISO/TC 68. If a New Work Item is approved by a super majority of countries that are members of ISO/TC 68 the New Work Item is assigned to a Working Group under a Technical Subcommittee. Each Working Group consists of technical experts in the field appointed to represent their member countries. After a sequence of revisions to committee drafts, proposed standards developed by a Working Group must be approved by a super majority of countries that are members of ISO/TC 68 before being submitted to ISO for approval as an ISO standard.

National Role

Where appropriate, national standards setting bodies can propose existing national standards to ISO/TC 68 to become adopted as international standards with the approval of ISO/TC 68 and ISO. These standards must be submitted as New Work Items by three or more member countries of ISO/TC 68.

History of ISO/TC 68

In the late 1940s, members of the financial industry came together under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to begin developing technical standards for the banking industry to use on a world-wide basis. The original name of the organization working on banking standards was Technical Committee 68, or TC 68-Banking. Over time the scope of TC 68 expanded to include all financial services. TC 68 has continued its basic mission through industry changes and the adoption of new scientific technologies that have fostered greatly increased international commerce. One of the changes made to reflect changes to the financial industry is TC 68's name. It is now referred to as Technical Committee 68 on Banking, Securities and other Financial Services.

TC 68 Secretariat

ANSI ASC X9 __FORCETOC__ The Accredited Standards Committee X9 (ASC X9, Inc.) is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) accredited standards developing organization, responsible for developing voluntary open consensus standards for the financial ...

holds a unique position within this ISO framework. It is the Secretariat to TC 68 and is also the leader of the official United States Technical Advisory Group (TAG) which represents the U.S. financial services industry to the international technical committee.

References

Note: Citation of copyrighted material used by permission of author.

External links

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ISO TC68 Committee Website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:ISO TC 68 #068