With finance forming an integral and vital part of many trade transactions the group is widely consulted by the other industry vertical domains under the UN/CEFACT umbrella who are pursuing similar objectives.
TBG5 is positioned as the co-ordination point between pure Financial Services standardisation, which takes place under ISO Technical Committee 68, and that of the wider trade domains represented under UN/CEFACT.
TBG5 has become more corporate-oriented by broadening out its membership to attract other industry vertical groupings, making TBG5 the focal forum allowing banks, corporates and others to collaborate on standards issues.
Around 1988 UNECE formally sponsored the ISO recommendation aimed at achieving a universal common syntax and the acronym became EDIFACT (Electronic Data Exchange For Administration Commerce and Transport).
In 1989 the concept of EDIFACT, the cross-sectorial messaging destined to permit end-to-end STP communication between banks and their corporate customers, was introduced to the financial sector during the SWIFT SIBOS conference held in Stockholm through a joint corporate and bank panel presentation.
Attendance at this session was overwhelming[clarification needed] (remote television screens had to be installed outside the packed meeting room); however, incompatibility between EDIFACT and SWIFT syntax prevented any further progress until XML syntax enabled stakeholders in the standardisation process to resume contacts.
With the advent of email the EDIFACT organisation was centralised, especially the technical assessment working group, and the regional rapporteurs’ role was eventually reduced to nothing.