The Payment Market Practice Group (PMPG) is a Global Forum that fosters collaboration to drive common market practices, complementing existing and evolving payment standards and regulations.</p> To understand the importance of the PMPG and its impact on the payments industry, Wells Fargo sat down with a few PMPG member banks to get their impressions - as one of the world’s largest USD clearing banks, Wells Fargo recognizes the importance of market practice to enhance straight-through processing (STP) and interoperability in the payments industry.</p> The consensus among its members is that the PMPG has had a positive impact on the payments space, especially among the larger clearing banks. Stephan Levieux, Head of Deposits, Payments & Cash Management Strategy at Hang Seng Bank Ltd., further attests, “The PMPG represents a valuable forum, where members genuinely focus on representing their communities and driving cooperation rather than the individual agendas of the institutions they work for.”</p> The common theme across all PMPG member banks interviewed is the need to reach the smaller banks to ensure that awareness related to payment market practices is understood more widely across the payments industry by all banks. In that vein, Michael Knorr, Head of Operational and Liquidity Risk for Global Payment Services at Wells Fargo comments, “We must find a way to reach a wider audience of banks to further foster adoption of recommended market practice guidelines.” Stephan Levieux concurs, adding that the impact of the PMPG has probably been strongest in Europe and North America, and agrees that more can be done to promote the PMPG in other parts of the world.</p> All PMPG member banks cited the importance and success of the MT202Cov guidelines. The PMPG generally focuses on market practice guidelines related to the following two categories: regulatory requirements (MT202COV guidelines, IBAN usage, FATF SR16), and general guidelines to streamline processes and enhance efficiency (Charge Claim guidelines, F/X Auto Conversion, amendment and cancellation practices).</p> Greg Murray, Head of Payment Products at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, reaffirms the good work the PMPG has done with the topics they have tackled, and would like to see them continue putting forth market practice recommendations focusing on topics that will improve efficiency and help expedite sanctions related inquiries.</p> George Doolittle, Head of Global Payment Services at Wells Fargo couldn’t agree more, “We have introduced a SWIFT Standards change to help identify and expedite sanctions related inquiries. We have also refreshed the guidelines around Charge Claims and introduced a SWIFT Standards Change Request to streamline the payment of charge claims.” In addition to sanction inquiries, Wells Fargo would like the PMPG to focus on examining the market practice related to amendments and cancellations of split advised instructions.</p> Rounding off the discussion, Greg Murray of Bank of America Merrill Lynch sums up the PMPG as follows, “[It is] an international group of banks focused on market practice guidelines that impact our underlying originating and beneficiary clients to make the payment experience better and more transparent.”</p> Article contributed by Wells Fargo.</p> Read more about PMPG membership, mission, payment market practice guidelines, and whitepapers here</a>.</p>