ISO 11649:2009 specifies the elements of a structured creditor reference (RF Creditor Reference) used to facilitate the processing of data in data interchange and in the financial services, as well as between other business domains. The RF Creditor Reference is designed for use in an automated processing environment, but can also be implemented in other media interchanges (e.g. paper document exchange).

ISO 11649:2009 does not specify internal procedures, file organization techniques, storage media, languages, etc. to be used in its implementation. It is applicable only to the textual data that can be conveyed through a system or network.