There are less than two months to go to the start of the coexistence period in March 2023, and we hope you’re making good use of this extra time during the revised timeline.
At Swift, we’ve set up dedicated capabilities for monitoring the evolution of go-live activities based on real-time traffic data with 24/7 coverage. We’ve also been busy installing Swift’s transaction management capabilities in the live environment.
With this technical deployment, the capabilities are now being managed as a live application, and we’re getting ready to start processing traffic as of the end of May 2023. By this stage we will have observed two months of live ISO 20022 messages.
To learn more about ISO readiness we’re putting on two extra webinars in our series, supporting you up to the beginning of March. To find out more please register to attend.
Going live with CBPR+ messages
CBPR+ messages will be activated for all eligible institutions during the Swift Maintenance Window in the weekend of 18 and 19 March 2023. The official start of coexistence is 20 March 2023. Make sure to bookmark Knowledge Base article 5025789 for further details and updates.
If you are ready to start exchanging live CBPR+ messages prior to that, please do consider joining the large number of institutions already subscribed as early adopters. Visit the CBPR+ Early Adoption Checklist for a summary of relevant preparation activities.
The road to readiness goes through the RMA Portal
RMA requirements for all FINplus participants remain unchanged in the preparation of the CBPR+ go-live, these include: verifying the bootstrapped records in the RMA Portal, complying with the central consistency checks, and importing the distribution file containing the bootstrapped records into your local interface. See the RMA Portal Getting Started document for more details.
To enable migration from local to central authorisations management by means of business profiles, the RMA Portal continues to be enhanced with new capabilities. Central management features are scheduled for activation in the test and training environment during February, and go live by end of February. For more information on RMA evolution and the migration, see Knowledge Base article 5023348.
Financial Crime Compliance (FCC): Ensure your systems are ready to screen ISO 20022 messages
It’s vital to review your compliance processes and ensure that your systems are ready to deal with ISO 20022 messages — plain or multi-format — from the very beginning of coexistence. If you use Swift’s hosted screening or fraud solutions, Sanctions/Transaction Screening (SSS/TSS) or Payment Controls (PCS), please read the next sections very carefully.
FCC: Define rules to screen ISO 20022 messages in PCS and TSS
All customers of PCS and TSS will automatically be provisioned for ISO 20022 flows, both for CBPR+ and Market Infrastructure related flows in line with the respective pilot and live dates. Still, you must review your PCS and TSS configurations to ensure rules to screen ISO 20022 messages are defined:
- TSS will always screen ISO 20022 CBPR+ messages. If you’re a TSS customer, you must therefore create a rule to screen incoming ISO 20022 messages, even if you process the embedded MT part of multi-format MX messages.
- For PCS, ensure the message type selection in the configuration of your existing rules applies to ISO 20022 messages as well.
For more information on how to configure your TSS and PCS applications, please see the TSS Support Page and PCS Support Page. For the full list of supported ISO 20022 services, please see Knowledge Base article 5025241. We also run customer webinars to help prepare for the screening of ISO 20022 messages in TSS and SSS. To register, please visit the TSS Support Page.
FCC: Migrate from SSS to TSS
Remaining SSS customers, who have not yet migrated to TSS, can only screen CBPR+ messages with limitations. Other ISO 20022 flows (Market Infrastructures) will not be supported in SSS. If you are one of these customers, we encourage you to migrate to TSS as soon as possible.
CBPR+: Usage Guidelines for November 2023 published
Remember, March 2023 is only the start, with additional CBPR+ messages becoming available later in 2023 and 2024. For more details, see Knowledge Base article 5025845.
The November 2023 release will cover cheques, direct debits, and a few other specific use cases.
- The initial collection of Usage Guidelines (UGs) was published late 2022 on MyStandards. It also includes an updated version of the CBPR+ User Handbook document.
- The ‘Release’ feature in the application allows you to clearly see which UGs are part of March vs. November.
- A dedicated Readiness Portal is also available to test the new UGs.
- The Translation Portal will be updated on 16 June 2023.
CBPR+: Tentative scope for November 2024
This year, the CBPR+ group will work on the UGs that will be deployed in November 2024. These will cover the new Charges messages (ISO base camt.105 and camt.106), and the new Exceptions and Investigations (E&I) messages (ISO base camt.110 and camt.111). The exact number of UGs that will be designed will be confirmed later in 2023.
CBPR+: ISO 20022 Payment Initiation Relay rulebook in the making
A CBPR+ subgroup is also looking at defining the common business rules, and roles and responsibilities of forwarding agents and debtor agents, to relay corporate payments efficiently. The ‘Rulebook for Payment Initiation Relay’ is scheduled for release in March 2023. It will support institutions in migrating their existing MT 101 interbank traffic to FINplus by the end of coexistence.
What are the next steps to take?
On the Ensuring ISO 20022 Readiness page, you can find extensive resources available to support you including webinar recordings, and links to key readiness documentation, like the Customer Adoption Guide, and In-Flow Translation Service Overview documents.
Please do:
- Continue readiness preparations and testing activities – Full preparation details and support can be found on our Ensuring ISO 20022 Readiness page.
- Plan decoupling of domestic and cross-border migrations – Prepare for the start of coexistence independently of any domestic ISO 20022 migration projects during the same period, as the start date of the CBPR+ migration in March 2023 is definitive.
- Consider CBPR+ early adoption – Institutions may already begin to adopt and exchange ISO 20022 messages in live, on an opt-in basis, ahead of March 2023. For everything you’ll need to prepare, please check the CBPR+ Early Adoption Checklist.
Fresh learning resources on Swift Smart
We continue enriching our learning resources on Swift Smart, with the most recent publications are:
