Billing of Bank Services

The BSB standard was created at the request of a group of end users and providers, the International Bank Compensation Group (IBC).The TWIST standards organization is the host for the standards creation process and the owner/maintainer of the standard.

BSB provides a standard means for banks to periodically advise their wholesale clients of bank service fees and average balances.Electronic in form, BSB compliments paper statements including balances, transaction volumes and related services fees of account activity.

BSB is intended to be equally relevant for use regardless of where bank accounts reside.By design BSB is intended to cover the EU, Singapore, USA, and other countries. It needs to be recognized however that bank billing and related market practice is complex and diverse across multiple geographies. It is possible that revisions to the standard will be required to accommodate market practice (or changes to practice) not accommodated by the standard at the time of its creation. A maintenance process will be available to address future revisions to the standard which may be required.

For specification, please see the requirements document

Purpose of the Global Electronic Bank Services Billing Standard

The purpose of the BSB is to transmit, from a Financial Institution (FI) to its wholesale customers (corporations, governments, institutions, etc.), information describing the FI’s billing of services rendered in the form of an electronic statement in a standard format. The BSB statement is a periodic (usually end of month) recounting of all service chargeable events that occurred during a reporting cycle, typically a calendar month, along with detailed tax and currency translation information. Account balance information, although strongly recommended, is not required.

The BSB statement is designed to provide detail in electronic form related to invoices (or an advice of debit) which a bank may supply to its customers today.BSB is not expressly designed to be an invoice.BSB is not expressly designed to replace invoices currently in use. BSB may be used as an invoice by agreement between sender and receiver.No regulatory or legislative requirements were considered when creating this message standard.Users of the BSB message are cautioned to be aware of any regulatory or legal requirement for invoices before replacing existing invoices.

The BSB can supply the detail supporting separate invoices or debits but it is not the invoice or advice of debit of record. The BSB must accurately reflect all the charge and tax related events that occurred during the calendar month and how the FI and taxing authorities were compensated for these events. The BSB does not ask the FI to revise its established pricing and billing procedures. How, when and what the customer is actually charged for remains in place. The BSB asks the FI to report what actually happened.

Benefits

The primary motivation for receiving electronic billing statements is simple. Corporations want to know how much is being spent for services rendered and to validate the information to ensure that the prices and charges are accurate. There are ancillary benefits because the corporation can:

• Check all bank calculations (find errors)
• Examine each and every line item charge
• Check expected balances, volumes and service prices
• Allocate bank charges automatically
• Perform modeling and “what if”
• Compare divisions, departments, regions, etc…
• Import/export data to general ledger and budget systems
• Perform bank-to-bank comparisons
• Perform trend analysis over time
• Satisfy Sarbanes-Oxley requirements
• Identify unused services
• Archive statements electronically

A complete and accurate record of every service volume, every service price, every service charge, every balance on deposit, every interest rate, and every tax calculation for every account in every bank for the last “X” months is a powerful resource indeed. The only practical way to enable this resource is through use of electronic billing statements in a standard format.

The Highlights of the Standard

BSB was not designed to replace existing invoices. It complements them.

BSB does not require the Banks to change existing procedures (e.g., replace direct debit with an invoice-based approach)

BSB provides the following:

• All charges and tax items during the reported period
• How the Bank and Tax Authorities have been compensated for these charges and tax items

Multiple “statements” can be contained in one message

All statements must relate to the same receiver and the same reporting cycle

Business Opportunities

Opportunity for banks:

• To offer corporate customers a new information product
• Overview of a corporation’s usage of banking services and related charges

Opportunity for corporations:

• Better management of cash positions
• Automated reconciliation of information provided.

Implementation by Banks

“Barclays are currently running a successful pilot with 6 clients. We anticipate launching a live solution to all Business Banking customers in Q2 2007 which will include the new TWIST standard.”

“Citigroup supports the TWIST BSB standard and is addressing by installing a global billing system for Citigroup Global Cash Management Services that will perform billing and information reporting in the BSB standard format for all our branches. We are installing the platform in three branches in the fourth quarter of 2006 and will roll it out globally in 2007.“

“Westpac is committed to working with GE on this exciting initiative, as demonstrated by us already being able to produce TWIST files for testing. Based on the current project status we expect and are confident that we will be placing this into production and be TWIST billing compliant for GE in the first quarter of 2007.“

Danske Bank said that they will “be piloting IBC / BSB by year end” with a corporate customer.

Deutsche Bank: “We have been an active participant in the TWIST e-billing reporting group since its inception. We do appreciate that the development of the new BSB standard for Europe is finalised. Deutsche Bank will start necessary information technology developments in the first quarter of 2007 and is planning on offering the service later in the year.”

HSBC: “During H1 2007, HSBC Global Transaction Banking will implement the ability to provide electronic billing statements using the TWIST XML standard for accounts based in a number of key countries within Asia, Pacific and Europe. Roll-out will commence in the UK in early 2007, with other locations both in Europe and Asia Pacific being included in the 2007 roll-out schedule.“

KBC: “values the importance of cash management and sees an added value in offering IBC / BSB reporting via Twist XML to their corporate customers. Development will start in 2007 and we will pilot with a corporate customer for their Belgian Cash Management. We foresee also further expanding this service to Central Europe.”

Suppliers of Software Solutons for Banks

Weiland Financial Group is delivering its BXB (Bank Xtensible Billing) system which prepares and distributes BSB statements in Dec. 2006

TriSyn Group will release the BSB standard as part of the Infopoint Account Analysis system Dec. 2006

Suppliers of Software Solutions for Corporations

Weiland Financial Group releasing BSB compatible BRMEdge 4th Qtr 2006

Chesapeake Systems releasing BSB compatible Smart Analysis 1st Qtr 2007