Hamer says that in Hong Kong the increased processing speed has already allowed Citigroup’s funds distribution arm to extend its deadline for managed fund applicants to receive that day’s closing price by four hours, well into mid-afternoon. But he believes the biggest benefit of SWIFT messages will be the reduction of errors. “At a conservative estimate, 2 to 3 per cent of all faxes go missing,” he says. “Some vendors have told us the figure is more like 4 or 5 times that. Automation brings the error rate to near zero, so for any institutions doing large transactions the savings on Good Value claims will be immediately apparent.”

To begin with, organisations will communicate information such as applications, redemptions and distributions using the current suite of 18 messages. There are a total of 68 different types of standard messages that can eventually be used. The standards evolved from market practice discussions with 15 institutions to determine the essential elements of each type of communication.

The messages use Extensible Mark-up Language (XML), enabling SWIFT to regularly review the content of the standard messages, adding or removing fields as needed. XML also has the benefit of being an industry standard format, which makes lower-cost connections to the SWIFT network possible through platforms such as Microsoft’s BizTalk Accelerator.