Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) information

1 May 2024 - update on parallel UCRs

Following consultation with market associations and technical working groups, specifically discussing parallel UCRs and the impact of removing these, Velonetic have agreed that for phase one all external interfaces and messages (including Write Back and EDIs) will retain parallel UCR (P-UCR) references and functionality as per today.  
 
This means: 

• Write Back messages, P-UCR references and associated original UCRs will continue to be supplied in their current format 

• EDI messages will continue to use P-UCRs as per today, including BSM in their current format 

• Each UCR and each P-UCR will continue to be separate and have its own sequencing as per today, and will need to be responded in the same transaction sequencing as per today

• Reachback will be consistent; P-UCRs will be associated with the original UCR both in the data databases and user interfaces this will then flow through to messaging 

• Central Settlement payment options and referencing will remain as today 

• Reserving will be maintained as per today with fees being able to be added and updated by Experts
  
  In addition, an Expert profile will be created for organisations with a Central Settlement Number (CSN) and this profile will be separate and different to the broker profile, but it will remain a ‘broker role’ in the Write Back message (retaining a broker-initiated actor code). This maintains document and data security and enables only authorised users to see relevant information, while allowing downstream processing to remain as per today. 
   
  Carriers will be able to view each UCR (parallel and original) in the ICOS portal with the ability to aggregate the view at a UCR level.

25 March 2024

Two frequently asked questions on EDIs and continuity after phase one cutover:

1. How will Signing Number and Dates (SNDs) generated by heritage services (mainframe applications under the FERN services contract) persist into the Digital Processing Services (DPS) (cloud applications) when the cutover to phase one DPS starts?

Transactions that have an SND generated by heritage services (mainframe applications) will continue to be available with the same SND during DPS. This applies to both signed and settled transactions and ‘in-flight’ transactions that have an SND and were migrated during the cutover to phase one DPS, or used the DPS reachback functionality.

Lloyd’s corrections currently use the same SND of the original transaction for the contra/corrected transaction with a version number appended to the SND. This process will continue to operate after the cutover to phase one DPS, and will work with transactions that have a mainframe-generated SND. For example: a Lloyd’s correction processed once cutover to phase one DPS happens, that relates to a heritage transaction that had a mainframe-generated SND, will have the same SND as the original with a version 2 appended to the SND.

When cutover to phase one DPS starts, reversals and cancellations will be able to use the same SNDs generated by the heritage services (mainframe applications). 

2. How will EDI message sequence numbers work when the cutover to phase one DPS starts?

On day 1 of the phase one DPS going live, the first EDI messages generated by DPS (cloud applications) will NOT continue the heritage services sequence number. All EDI messages sequence numbers for all customers will be reset to a ‘higher-than-all-current’ sequence. Velonetic will analyse all current sequence numbers and will pick a higher round number, which will become the new market-wide reset for all EDI sequence numbers. 

By way of a hypothetical example: if out of our thousands of individual current EDI sequence numbers we find the highest is 6,734, then Velonetic will pick 7,000 as the new reset for all EDIs for all customers). When the first phase one DPS EDI messages are delivered with the new reset base sequence number (7,000 in our hypothetical example), subsequent EDIs will have sequences that increase as per each message standard specification (7,001, 7,002, 7,003… in our hypothetical example). The actual market-wide reset base sequence number will be published one month before the cutover to phase one DPS starts.