ISO 20022

ISO 20022 is an international standard for electronic data interchange between financial institutions and other businesses. It provides a common platform for developing messages in a standardized format, improving communication and efficiency in financial transactions including payments, securities and FX.

Key benefits of ISO 20022:

• Standardizes electronic data interchange between financial institutions.
• Provides consistent, structured data for financial business transactions.
• Simplifies global business communication.
• Helps streamline domestic and international payment capabilities.

For more information, please visit https://www.iso20022.org/

ISO 20022 enhances the quality and richness of data in financial messages, leading to improved processing efficiency (removing human manual intervention in messaging), better regulatory compliance, and enhanced customer experience. It also supports the global harmonization of payment systems; ISO 20022 schemas provide a high level of business validation, reducing the risks of sending or receiving incorrect data. For more details see https://www.swift.com/standards/iso-20022/iso-20022-standards

• U.S. domestic payments (FedNow and Fedwire): July 14, 2025
• International cross-border payments (SWIFT): November 22, 2025
• SWIFT stops supporting unstructured addresses: November 2026

FedNow and Fedwire pertain to domestic payments (July 2025), and SWIFT pertains to cross-border payments (November 2025). North American financial institutions need to recognize that the July 2025 deadline for the Fed applies primarily to domestic payments, while the November 2025 SWIFT deadline pertains to international payments.

ISO 20022 grew out of a previous standard in the securities messaging space, ISO 15022. SWIFT was one of the key contributors to ISO 15022 and maintained this leading role in the development of ISO 20022. In June 2004, SWIFT was appointed Registration Authority (RA) for the standard – a role that SWIFT continues to fulfill. The RA is responsible for maintaining and publishing the central repository of ISO 20022 content and ensuring its integrity. In its role of RA, SWIFT developed and continues to support and update www.iso20022.org. ¹

¹ ISO 20022 for Dummies, SWIFT 4^th Limited Edition

Financial Institutions will not be impacted (no need to do anything) if they process payments through Convera. Please note: You do not need to make any changes to the way you interact with us as a result of the ISO20022 transition. See question “If my organization currently sends payments in batch via a file or via API, what should we do?” if your organization is interfaced via file or API.

Other implications if you do not work with Convera:

• Compliance: If you do not work with Convera or another payment provider, by November 2025, your institution must be fully compliant with ISO 20022 standards for both domestic and cross-border payments.
• System upgrade: Transitioning to ISO 20022 requires significant updates to payment processing systems, including changes to message formats and data handling procedures if you do not work with a payment partner such as Convera.
• Enhanced data capabilities: ISO 20022 provides richer and more structured payment data, enabling improved compliance monitoring, better customer insights, and enhanced operational efficiencies. If you are partnering with Convera, you will see all these benefits without having to do anything.

• Improved data quality and consistency
• Enhanced interoperability between different payment systems
• Greater efficiency in processing payments
• Better compliance with regulatory requirements
• Enhanced customer experience through richer data

Yes, Convera is currently rolling out the format changes for Swift according to our partner banks’ timelines and will meet readiness before November 2025.

For clients currently configured with the Convera Swift incoming solution, you should start planning to receive MX pacs.008 format before November 2025. Please contact your account manager to inform us of your timelines as well as if you want more information on this solution.

No, ISO 20022 doesn’t impact banks only; it affects a broader range of financial institutions, market infrastructures, and even corporate customers, aiming to create a standardized, data-rich communication language for all financial transactions.

If your organization is currently processing payments using one of the below channels, see below for action required by the November 2025 deadline:

One of the direct benefits of using ISO is to exchange structured data (See question “What data structure is required by ISO?“). For example, postal addresses can be quite different from one country to another. ISO will consolidate everything into a shared and global format.

ACTION MAY BE REQUIRED: should your organization currently send payment instructions via a file or API, and address fields are not segregated, a mapping change might be required. Failing to do so may cause transactions to be stopped.

If your organization partners with a technology vendor to process your payments, you will need to reach out to your vendor’s contact and verify they are ISO ready.

As explained, Convera will manage the translation into ISO instructions. However, the quality of the information remains critically important. For example, the address fields for the Remitter, the Payee or your own institution must be sent via your current interface in the designated field.

The below illustrates how details are now structured in accordance with ISO 20022.

Table to illustrate the MT message types and equivalents in ISO 20022

If your organization has a mandate to change the current interface with Convera, you can use this document https://convera.readme.io/docs/payment-fields. Please contact your account manager for more details.

Convera is already sending ISO 20022 messages but will continue to support MT messages until November 2025.