When people mention the benefits of standards, they often take an IT perspective, citing improvements in developer efficiency and systems integration. At ACORD, we of course acknowledge the technical benefits of standards, but we emphasise the business values more.
I recently came across this partial list of benefits, aimed at the financial services industry:
1. Visibility built on data standards will support global financial stability.
2. A standards-based universal coding system is a public good that should not be locked-up in proprietary ownership. It should be run by a not-for profit, industry-owned organization.
3. Industry stands to gain from data standardization. It is well understood that improvement in efficiency through standards would yield billions of dollars in annual savings.
Point 1, on stability, speaks to the general sense that the global financial industry doesn't have a coherent picture of who owes what to whom. The third point is an "everybody know that" argument, which nevertheless needs filling in. How many billions, and how soon?
The middle point is, to me, the most striking. The builders and implementers of standards are indeed custodians of a public good. Standards belong to the communities they serve. We should see standards bodies as defenders and promoters of their members' common interests. The not-for-profit, industry-owned route is the best way to ensure the inclusiveness, accessibility and above all relevance of our precious standards. Financial Data Standardization
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