Why was the TSU conceived?
SWIFT’s Trade Services Utility was developed for the banks and designed by the banks to provide themselves with an efficient exchange of trade-related information through common messaging, industry standards and a utility that is supported by banks globally. The initiative was a reaction to the ever increasing migration to open account business, from traditional trade business like Letters of Credit and Documentary Collections, which equates to over 80% of all trade business conducted globally. What is the SWIFT TSU solution? • A work flow and data matching engine to report discrepancies between messages • It uses sub-sets of data, which are extracted from existing paper or electronic documentation (either an invoice, transport or insurance data sets) • Establishes new standard terminology for the industry • Serves as an informational hub for banks to send/receive standard XML messages to/from the TSU (no bank to bank direct interface) • Banks send and receive standard XML messages to
