Skip to content
ABBL Logo
Switch to consumers

ISO20022 Migration

ISO20022, established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), stands as a global and open messaging standard for financial institutions. It seamlessly integrates vast amounts of highly structured data, addressing interoperability issues within the payment ecosystem, particularly on an international scale.

As the financial industry transitions towards the common ISO20022 standard between March 2023 and November 2025, it anticipates enhanced efficiency, streamlined communication among stakeholders, and strengthened capabilities in detecting and preventing financial crime.

Moreover, the adoption of enriched and structured data sets promises accelerated processing, heightened visibility among payment stakeholders, and better alignment with the requirements of a digital economy.

The Benefits of ISO20022 Standards

ISO20022 standards offer a multitude of benefits to the financial sector, fostering efficiency and innovation:

Improved reconciliation and cash allocation

ISO20022 offers the ability to streamline and automate reconciliation, reducing the need for manual intervention and improving operational efficiency.

Improved fraud monitoring and compliance prevention

These standards enrich information, contributing to the development of robust fraud detection and prevention models. They also facilitate more effective and accurate compliance reporting, ensuring that regulatory requirements are met.

Greater payment transparency

ISO20022 promotes greater transparency of transactions, which benefits all parties involved by providing a clearer view of payment flows and activities.

Unlocking value-added services from banks

Adopting ISO20022 lays the foundations for banks to offer innovative value-added services. By leveraging enriched data and streamlined processes, banks can deliver enhanced services to their customers, resulting in greater value and satisfaction.

Migration Timeline

The transition to ISO20022 standards is taking place in stages in various sectors:

SWIFT transition

SWIFT will move from the MT format to the MX format, with a period of coexistence until 2025. During this period, both formats will be accepted and supported by the SWIFT network. By 2025, ISO20022 will become the only standard recognised worldwide.

Migration to SEPA

All SEPA schemes, including SEPA Credit Transfers and SEPA Direct Debits, will migrate to ISO20022 from March 2024.

Migration of market infrastructures and banks

Market infrastructures and banks will migrate at varying speeds depending on the market between March 2023 and 2025. However, by March 2024, the cross-border payments industry will be able to support data-rich ISO20022 transactions globally.

Timeline

March 2023

  • Start of the SWIFT coexistence period for MX & MT
  • Big bang migration of Target2 (Market Infrastructure operated by the Eurosystem)

March 2024

Luxembourg PSPs and payment stakeholders will migrate to pain.001 v9 for payment initiation

November 2025

  • End of legacy payment messages
  • End of SWIFT coexistence period

Corporates: What Is at Stake?

Starting March 2024, most payment service providers will accept the latest payment initiation messages from their customers, adhering to ABBL guidelines and utilising ISO’s “pain.001” version 9. Although support for pain.001 version 03 will persist until November 2025 as per existing ABBL guidelines, we strongly advise migrating your pain.001 messages to version 09 as early as March 2024.

This transition promises more efficient payment processing and helps mitigate the risk of potential delays or rejections in your migration efforts.

Timeline

March 2024

  • Pain.001 V09 supported and strongly recommended in accordance with new ABBL guidelines (v3.0)
  • Pain.001 v03 still supported according to current ABBL guidelines (v2.4) for a smooth migration to the pain.001 v09

November 2025

  • Pain.001 v03 not supported anymore
  • Unstructured beneficiary customer data not supported anymore

Corporate Guidance for Migration Preparation

To ensure a smooth transition, follow these steps:

  1. Refer to the ABBL website for insights into the ISO20022 migration and review the ABBL XML message for Credit Transfer Initiation Implementation Guidelines Version 3.0.
  2. Engage in discussions with your bankers to clarify expectations, express your preferences, and understand their support plans.
  3. Consult with your vendors to ascertain their readiness plans and explore how they can assist you during the migration process.
  4. Deepen your understanding of the implications for your business, identify potential opportunities, and formulate a readiness plan.
  5. Assess whether infrastructure adjustments, particularly within your ERP/TMS systems, are necessary to accommodate data-rich ISO20022 payments, considering the changes in payment message data structure and size.
  6. Prepare to transition to the latest Payment Initiation (pain.001 v09) version as early as March 2024 to ensure seamless data flow. Anticipating this shift by November 2023 will prevent potential delays in payment processing and reconciliation issues.
  7. Ready yourself to provide structured name and address information for beneficiaries starting March 2024.
  8. Embrace new data requirements for agency business models, facilitating ‘on-behalf-of’ payments/collections using the ultimate party and consolidating payments and cash reporting through a concentrator model.