Many of its standards are mandatory in industry and it represents Australia in ISO and IEC meetings. Its standards are often regional efforts with Standards New Zealand . Thanks to the Internet's loose organisation, an RFC can end up as a de facto standard, but once a high degree of technical maturity is attained, the IETF generally declares an Internet Standard. Engineering standards help increase product safety. Uniformity in manufacturing leads to greater efficiency and reliability.
Global trade depends greatly on the acceptance of standards.
Conformity makes it easier to import and export. For example, containers carried by ships and trucks are all built to a specific standard for easy transport. Banking and financial services in different countries can easily perform transactions with each other. Products made in one country can be interchangeable or interoperable with those made in another. The benefits can be seen in everyday objects such as credit cards and smartcards, which all fit an international standard for size and thickness.