The BSB standard defines an electronic statement that can be sent by a bank to its wholesale customers (e.g., corporations, governments, institutions) detailing their usage of financial services and their related charges. A BSB statement includes volumes and associated charges for all billable services rendered during a billing cycle, usually one month.  In addition to its use as a statement for which it was designed, BSB may be used as an e-invoice in most countries.

This standard was developed by TWIST at the request of a corporate interest group, led by General Electric.

BSB has been created to help corporations:

• Enhance control over the cost of banking services
• Automate account reconciliation and account for bank fees
• Simplify the task of complying with market regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley
• From the perspective of the bank, BSB represents a new information product which helps differentiate bank transaction services

A TWIST BSB statement is designed to report on all bank services rendered during the reporting period. A BSB statement includes:

• For one or more accounts in a client/bank relationship
• For a defined period in time, typically the most recently concluded monthly bank billing cycle
• Identification of all chargeable services used in the period
• The volume of those services during the period
• The per item and total charge for those services
• Select balance and interest information
• Relevant tax information

For reporting of periodic bank fees, any & all countries.  BSB is offered in approximately 100 countries today.  Note:  A small number of countries may disallow use as an e-invoice.

Any period as agreed between the bank and its client.  A single calendar month period is most common.

Different code series may be used to identify service fees including bank proprietary codes as well as the Global Service Codes published by the AFP.

They are the same thing!  TWIST BSB is the first version of this standard.  TWIST has worked with ISO 20022 and SWIFT on newer versions of the standard to allow the publication of BSB as a part of the ISO 20022 family of financial services standards.  ISO 20022 camt.086 continues to be managed by TWIST as submitter and contains certain fixes and enhancements over earlier versions of this standard.

Conceptually, BSB is the global equivalent to the ANSI 822. Essentially a superset of the 822, BSB includes virtually all of the substantive business requirements and capabilities found in the 822. BSB accommodates multi-currency and value added tax, features not found in 822.

BSB is a control tool. It has been devised to complement existing activities, such as invoicing and account reconciliation, not to replace them.

A BSB message supports multiple statements as well as multiple accounts. In fact a statement can be articulated in a hierarchy of parent and child accounts all identified by codes, to reflect most organizational requirements.

In a BSB communication only the TWIST BSB message is provided as a standard document. In fact the purpose of a BSB communication is fulfilled when the BSB message is delivered from the originator to a recipient. How the message is sent and received, frequency, method of transmission (push/pull), and security are all out of the standard’s scope and are agreed between the sender and the receiver.  Internet protocol based file transmission, SWIFT FileAct and other means are all currently used to send BSB files from banks to their wholesale clients.

Most frequently, the reporting period is one month.  The period used is bilaterally determined by the bank and their client.

The AFP’s Global Service Codes, bank proprietary codes, as well as other code series may be used.  As of the latest version of camt.086, the ISO 20022 Bank Transaction Codes are also supported.  The actual codes used are dependent on the reporting banks abilities. As a global standard, use of the AFP’s code series is encouraged.