ISO 20022: A new era for global payments
The global financial community has reached a major milestone: ISO 20022 is now the standard language for cross-border payments worldwide.
ISO 20022 elevates customer experience in today’s fiat currency system in support of the G20 goals for international payments, enabling faster, more efficient and data-driven payments. The move also will lay the foundations for the future of digital transactions while boosting operational efficiency and compliance, deepening customer insights and taking the end-user experience to the next level.
On 22 November 2025, the coexistence period between MT and ISO 20022 messages for cross-border payments and reporting (CBPR+) ended, marking the start of a new era of richer, more structured payments data.
This switch will both enhance risk and control capabilities to better support compliance requirements and lay the foundations for the next generation of payments.
Driving a smarter, faster payments experience
ISO 20022 is a key enabler towards an enhanced cross-border payments experience, in line with G20 goals, and its flexible and extensible format provides a strong foundation for digital transformation and integration of tokenised forms of value. As Swift and its community continue to collaborate, it is key to our work in shaping the future of finance, together.
Endorsed by the G20 and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), ISO 20022 is central to faster, more efficient and data-driven payments.
By enabling richer, structured data within transactions, it helps financial institutions:
- Boost operational efficiency and straight-through processing rates
- Improve analytics, compliance and customer insight
- Drive innovation and enhanced end-user experiences
Jerome Piens added: “The new standard will power our strategic initiative to create a payment scheme to guarantee a consistently fast, predictable and transparent experience for retail customers worldwide, and will also enable the foundations for our blockchain-based shared ledger, to allow the trusted movement of tokenised value, thereby bringing together TradFi and DeFi for a fully interoperable financial ecosystem of the future.
Unlocking the full value of ISO 20022
Swift continues to support the community with a focus on business continuity to ensure a smooth exit from coexistence. With the community reaching this point, the focus can also now shift from format readiness to realising the value of structured data. Swift is providing guidance, tools, and analytics to help institutions measure, optimise and innovate using ISO 20022 data.
We’re also working closely with:
- Domestic markets, as PMIs continue their migration journeys;
- Financial institutions and corporates, to ensure rich, high-quality data is captured at source and flows seamlessly across payment chains.
Explore the roadmap and benefits
Visit our ISO 20022 hub or contact your account manager to explore the roadmap and benefits.