ISO 11649:2009

INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 11649
First edition
2009-03-15
Financial services — Core banking —
Structured creditor reference to
remittance information
Services financiers — Opérations bancaires centrales — Référence
structurée de créancier à l'information de remise

Reference number
©
ISO 2009
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ii © ISO 2009 – All rights reserved

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies
(ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through ISO
technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been
established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and
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International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of technical committees is to prepare International Standards. Draft International Standards
adopted by the technical committees are circulated to the member bodies for voting. Publication as an
International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the member bodies casting a vote.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO 11649 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 68, Financial services, Subcommittee SC 7, Core
banking.
Introduction
The use of electronic communication media and services internationally for the transmission of information
and payment and payment-related transactions between financial institutions, as well as between financial
institutions and their customers, continues to increase.
In this environment, this International Standard has been developed with a view to facilitating automated
processes in support of Straight Through Processing (STP), as a means by which financial institutions and
their customers can exchange, through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), structured creditor reference
(hereafter referred to as RF Creditor Reference). The RF Creditor Reference is a means to convey customer
payment details in a machine-readable form. It also makes provision for validation of the RF Creditor
Reference by making use of a computational check digit.
When developing this International Standard, it was recognized that there currently exist a limited number of
structured creditor references in national schemes with different formats and usage rules. This International
Standard provides a means of structuring the information in a way that promotes automated processing both
in local and cross-border use.
It is anticipated that the use of this International Standard in electronic data interchange will:
a) reduce the need for manual intervention in the processing of data interchange,
b) improve the level of confidence in the accuracy of the information provided, and
c) provide certainty that the information provided is relevant to the customer.
It is recognized that the RF Creditor Reference would also be of use in a paper environment.

iv © ISO 2009 – All rights reserved

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 11649:2009(E)

Financial services — Core banking — Structured creditor
reference to remittance information
1 Scope
This International Standard specifies the elements of a structured creditor reference (RF Creditor Reference)
used to facilitate the processing of data in data interchange and in the financial services, as well as between
other business domains. The RF Creditor Reference is designed for use in an automated processing
environment, but can also be implemented in other media interchanges (e.g. paper document exchange).
This International Standard does not specify internal procedures, file organization techniques, storage media,
languages, etc. to be used in its implementation. It is applicable only to the textual data that can be conveyed
through a system or network.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 7064, Information technology — Security techniques — Check character systems
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
3.1
creditor reference
proprietary identifier assigned by the creditor that uniquely and unambiguously identifies a business document
or similar set of business data
3.2
RF Creditor Reference
creditor reference expanded with the RF Creditor Reference identifier and check digits, intended for use
domestically and internationally, which uniquely and unambiguously identifies a business document or similar
set of business data
3.3
RF Creditor Reference identifier
RF
unique identifier to denote the structured creditor reference (e.g. in the appropriate Remittance Information
element) as an RF Creditor Reference
4 Conventions
This International Standard uses the conventions listed below for data element representations.
⎯ Character representations:
⎯ n digits (numeric characters 0 to 9 only);
⎯ a upper case letters (alphabetic characters A-Z only); or
⎯ c upper and lower case alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z and 0-9);
⎯ e blank space.
⎯ Length indications:
⎯ nn! fixed length;
⎯ nn maximum length.
5 Structure
The format of the RF Creditor Reference shall be:
2!a2!n21c
where
⎯ the first two letters (2!a) shall always be “RF”, the RF Creditor Reference identifier;
⎯ the third and fourth characters (2!n) shall be the check digits, as calculated from the scheme defined in
this International Standard (see Clause 6);
⎯ the remaining part of the RF Creditor Reference (up to 21c), creditor reference, shall only contain upper
and lower case letters (A to Z and a to z) and numeric characters (0 to 9), without special characters such
as separators and punctuation, that may be used
...