BofA Merrill Adopts SWIFT MyStandards for Global Custody

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has licensed the SWIFT MyStandards product for its custody message expansion program.

MyStandards is a web-based application designed to facilitate the management of global standards and market practices across the financial industry.
BofA Merrill will broaden the instruction and reporting messages used by clients, agents and internally across BofA Merrill Global Transaction Services business lines to facilitate greater straight through processing.

“MyStandards is a simple yet powerful way to connect with our clients and servicers while adding efficiency,” said Morgan Downey, head of Global Custody and Agency Services for BofA Merrill. “Clients will benefit from the transparency of our message guidelines and enjoy easy access to annual SWIFT release changes and our own product enhancements.”

The initial BofA Merrill custody message publication via MyStandards is scheduled for the fourth quarter.

“While MyStandards provides significant immediate benefit for standards documentation control, we are very excited about its future impact in the message testing process,” Downey said. “MyStandards re-engineers testing by eliminating the time lags involved with set up and communication link coordination, allowing clients to focus on the message content. The net result is a greatly reduced implementation timeframe.”