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/

Payment messages currently allow addresses as free text. As part of an industry-wide transition to ISO 20022 and new SWIFT payment standards, additional address information will be required for parties involved in cross-border payments. In practice, payment instructions will now need to include town/city and country in separate dedicated fields.  This is what we call structured addresses.

The following information will be required for payees and remitters: 

  • Town/city 
  • Country

The following information will be required for payee banks and remitter banks: 

  • Town/city and country, or 
  • A valid Bank Identifier Code (BIC) or Routing Code.  

Those new standards aim to improve the quality, consistency, and transparency of payment information exchanged between financial institutions globally. 

Swift originally set 14 November 2026 as the date by which every payee would need this address information. That date has been pushed back because banking groups in several countries aren’t ready to send full address details in the new format and asked Swift for more time. Swift agreed and will confirm the new date during December 2026. The new implementation date is expected to be sometime in 2027.

Convera has made the decision to go ahead with implementing the changes on November 14 as initially planned.

Not every bank or country is waiting for Swift. Some local payment systems, including those in Hong Kong and Singapore, were never part of the Swift decision and are keeping to the November 2026 date. This means payments to those countries may still need full beneficiary address details from November.

Whatever the final Swift date turns out to be, our banking partners have all advised us to keep collecting address details now. As a result, we have made the decision to stick to the initial deadline. 

Yes. Convera has made the decision to go ahead with implementing the changes on November 14 as initially planned. Please update all payee records as early as possible to meet the new requirements, i.e. having town/city and country information populated and sitting in separate dedicated fields.

Although the industry deadline has been extended, intermediary banks may still request early compliance with the new structured address standards. Failure to provide complete or correctly formatted information could result in payment delays or rejections.

Note: Where possible, collect the beneficiary’s full address, including the street name and building number*. Providing more complete address information can help improve payment processing efficiency.

*Provided that the town/city and country are recorded in their own dedicated fields, the remaining address information may continue to be entered as free text.

For customers using EDGE and GlobalPay, visual indicators will highlight payees that have missing information or require attention.  

For Global Pay for Financial Institutions, a visual indicator will show any records that Convera has updated.

The Swift delay does not affect this. Please keep filling in the address fields as we have asked, including the town/city and the country. If you would like to move to the newer pain.001 format, get in touch with us and we will talk it through.

Yes. It applies to international payments in any currency. Some payments you may think of as local, such as ACH, can also be affected if they are processed through international payment networks along the way. 

No. This is an industry-wide change led by Swift, the network banks use to send international payments. Every bank and payment provider that handles cross-border payments will need to meet the same requirements, not just Convera.

It may be rejected or delayed. Once the rules apply, there is no fallback and no grace period. If a payment reaches a bank that requires the town/city and country in their own fields and yours are missing, that bank can hold the payment or send it back. There is no process to fix it in transit.

Please contact our Customer Care Team at [email protected] for assistance. If you are an EDGE user, please open your support request directly through the Support Center on the EDGE platform.