The future of payments is evolving. We spoke to the Bank of Cyprus to learn more about how they made the leap to ISO 20022 and the steps they took to achieve a successful adoption.
About Bank of Cyprus
The Bank of Cyprus is a Cypriot financial services company established in 1899 with its headquarters in Strovolos. It’s the largest banking and financial services group in Cyprus, with significant market share across its business segments including retail and corporate banking, wealth management and insurance.
The scenario
To understand the scale of the project requirements, the first phase for the team at the Bank of Cyprus was to analyse and assess all of the systems and processes that may be affected by adopting the new global messaging standard.
“We started exploring the ISO 20022 migration in 2020. Our journey began with understanding the various messages under the scope of changing from the MT to ISO 20022,” says Yiannis Sophocleous, Project Manager at the Bank of Cyprus.
Yiannis continues, “We identified and mapped all our applications and middleware systems involved in consuming or sending MT messages. This process provided us with a clear overview of all the systems affected by the ISO 20022 messages.”
This included speaking to industry experts and ensuring they were on top of the latest available information before progressing with the project. During the initial analysis phase, the Bank of Cyprus also used the library of detailed information provided by Swift.
“We attended various training sessions and seminars, used MyStandards extensively, and accessed the translation portal to understand the main differences between the MT messages and ISO 20022 at the field level,” Yiannis explains.
A robust impact assessment is key
After the initial assessment phase, the team realised it was essential for its operations and global footprint to take the lead and adopt ISO 20022 in order to get the benefit of rich data. The next phase of their journey required the creation of a comprehensive strategy to enable seamless adoption.
The strategy highlighted three possible solutions for ensuring a successful ISO 20022 adoption programme, as Yannis explains, “Once we had a full understanding, we developed a strategy for adopting ISO 20022, taking into account several different options.”
These included, “We considered upgrading all our applications to fully support ISO 20022. Additionally, we explored using middleware or In-flow Translator to translate ISO 20022 messages while still accepting MT messages. Alternatively, we could have adopted a hybrid approach, where some messages are translated and certain applications are upgraded to support ISO 20022.”
Yannis also highlights the importance of effective planning and impact assessments saying, “What went very well is that we did an excellent job during the analysis phase. We identified right at the beginning all the systems, applications, and middleware impacted by ISO20022.”
Communication with stakeholders laid the foundations for success
One of the key lessons learned during the impact assessment was the importance of engaging cross-functional teams from the beginning of the project.
“The team did a fantastic job on the impact assessment. We mapped the existing messaging flows across various departments, paying particular attention to the reference fields, which had an increased character length in ISO 20022 compared to MT,” Yannis says.
By involving departments including IT, operations, legal, compliance, and risk management, Bank of Cyprus ensured concerns were thoroughly explored and fixed in real time. Each stakeholder also familiarised themselves with the ISO 20022 standard, using Swift’s Knowledge Centre and MyStandards as critical resources.
“The exercise also offered us the opportunity to review internal processes and identify areas for greater automation and Straight Through Processing rates. Completing all of this enabled us to outline the next steps, define the full scope of the project, and ensure we could meet the deadlines established by the community.”
Leveraging Swift’s resources
“We had to manage a number of projects at the same time, and there was a vast amount of information to assess initially,” says Yiannis.
To overcome this, the team relied on Swift’s resources. “Particularly the CBPR+ Portal and CBPR+ Translation Portal gave us critical messaging specifications and guidance. Swift Smart was also a great learning resource, offering a range of modules to help our teams get up to speed with the adoption process.”
Testing was another area that posed an interesting challenge for the team. “During testing, we dedicated significant time to agreeing on the approach for testing various combinations and scenarios,” Yiannis says.
Bank of Cyprus overcame this by using Swift’s Test Sparring Partner solution. “It was a really useful tool during our testing, ensuring the delivery of a high-quality solution. One of the biggest advantages was the elimination of dependency on other banks for coordinating testing.”
This independence sped up the process and helped the bank complete testing quickly.
“We were able to simulate various scenarios and combinations, increasing our confidence that surprises in production would be minimised. The real-time validation feature allowed us to quickly identify and resolve errors, providing end-to-end testing without any limitations from external factors. We managed to go live from day one without any issues, and we did not impact any of our customers,” says Yannis.
Overcoming the hurdles
There are always going to be multiple moving parts. As Yannis explains, “We had to manage changes for 15 systems, with a split of 50/50 between internal and vendor-based applications,” Yannis says.
“When working with vendors during the adoption process, it was essential to engage in specific workshops to identify requirements and any customisation needs from the outset.”
This approach helped reduce the number of change requests later on. Another key to success for Bank of Cyprus was leveraging the vendors’ deep knowledge and expertise in ISO 20022, which enabled a smoother and more efficient process for aligning systems with the new standard.
“This helped us formulate a strategy on which applications to upgrade and which to continue sending MT messages,” Yannis adds.
Time spent in preparation is seldom wasted
Bank of Cyprus’s journey to ISO 20022 adoption showcases the importance of thorough planning, leveraging available resources, and effective project management.
To sum up the process as a whole, Yannis says, “We performed a thorough analysis, identified all relevant systems, conducted a solid impact assessment, and developed a comprehensive strategy. This preparation enabled us to go live on day one without any issues.”
This success story serves as an inspiration for other institutions embarking on their ISO 20022 migration journey, demonstrating that with the right approach and resources, a seamless successful adoption is attainable.
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