The tie-up, which GTR first reported last year, means that corporates with multiple banking partners will no longer have to provide ESG information in differing formats through bilateral exchanges, which is costly, time-consuming and inefficient. Instead, the inclusion of the ICC’s guidelines on the KYC registry provides an industry standard that means corporates will only need to complete and update a single form that they can then share with their banking partners. “Never before have environmental and sustainability practices had a more significant bearing on the financial decisions made by consumers, investors, corporates and financial institutions alike,” says Bart Claeys, head of data and analytics products strategy at Swift. “This has led to a huge increase in demand for ESG due diligence which has, due to a lack of standardisation, been difficult to provide.”