Table of contents
ISO 20022 for Corporates
Why is Swift focusing on corporates adopting ISO 20022?
One of Swift’s priorities is extending the rich data across the payment chain. This will help banks and corporates streamline their cross-border payments by maintaining data integrity end to end, leading to improved reconciliation, better forecasting of payment flows and improved working capital management.
By making our new FINplus service available to the corporate community, we’ve introduced a payment instruction standard for corporates enabling them to reap the rewards of ISO 20022. With the MX Standards Release in 2025 we will extend the scope with cash reporting.
How does ISO 20022 improve treasury processes?
ISO 20022 helps to reduce payment friction, streamline reconciliation by using structured remittance information, increase the accuracy of cash flow forecasting, and improve working capital through richer and structured data that allows forecasting future inbound and outbound payment flows.
Use cases can be found in our ebook "Supercharge your payments business with ISO 20022". The use case "Strengthen corporate treasury activities" goes into corporates specifically.
Can corporates and banks that are part of SCORE exchange ISO 20022 messages?
Swift is setting the richer ISO 20022 data standard end-to-end, and supporting with communication channels and complementary services as an evolution of the SCORE offering, to capture and deliver high data quality. Concretely, this means that in addition to the existing communication channels that are covered by SCORE, such as FIN and FileAct, the SCORE agreement allows users to exchange ISO 20022 payments over FINplus. Moving FIN flows to FINplus allows corporates and banks to reap the benefits of network validation and orchestration from the Transaction Manager.
We are live with payment initiation already and will be piloting cash reporting in 2025. The exchange of the ISO 20022 messages between SCORE participants is subject to a specific RMA.
Can corporates and banks in MA-CUGs exchange ISO 20022 messages?
As per CBPR+ scope, all payment instructions exchanged with SUPE and NOSU must migrate to ISO 20022 by November 2025. Such traffic within MA-CUGs is also subject to this migration deadline.
Exceptions are:
- Users of SCORE - corporates and banks can continue to send and receive MTs such as MT 101, MT940 and MT942 after November 2025 within the SCORE service.
- Members of MI-CUGs (Market Infrastructure CUGs administered by customers) can continue to send and receive MTs such as the MT 103 and MT 202 after November 2025. These MI-CUGs will migrate when customers decide.
For information on how to access if your traffic must be migrated to CBPR+ visit our Knowledge Base tip.
As a corporate in the SUPE/ NOSU user category, do I need to migrate my MT 101 traffic to ISO 20022 by November 2025?
As per CBPR+ scope, all payment instructions exchanged by SUPE and NOSU must migrate to ISO 20022 by November 2025. However, following community consultation and feedback regarding MT101 (interbank), the switch to the ISO 20022 equivalent (pain.001) will be deprioritized for November 2025. MT101 (single instruction FI-to-FI) and MT 101 (multiple instruction FI-to-FI) will continue to be supported on FIN after November 2025. Please refer to this Knowledge Base tip for further details.
For information on how to assess if your traffic must be migrated to CBPR+ visit our Knowledge Base tip. For information on whether to send pain.001 or pacs.008 messages visit our Knowledge Base tip. Note that while it is not mandatory for corporates to migrate from MT to the ISO 20022 equivalent at this time, we encourage corporates to adopt ISO 20022 now to realize the full benefits of rich and structured data.
ISO 20022 message types
Which payment initiation flows are covered by the ISO 20022 standard for corporate payments?
The usage guidelines support both cross border and domestic unitary payment instructions that corporates can transmit to their financial institution as pain.001 (and with corresponding pain.002 as Customer Payment Status Report).
The main drivers behind the design of the specifications were to target treasury flows that happen over FIN today, as they are in line with CGI-MP recommendations, while ensuring continuous compatibility with CBPR+ (Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus), HVPS+ (High-Value Payments Plus) and IP+ (Instant Payment Plus).
Will cash reporting messages be covered with the ISO 20022 standard for corporate payments?
Swift’s ambition is to pilot cash reporting (camt.052/053/054) over FINplus in 2025. The availability of these messages is part of the development of Usage Guidelines for Cash Management & Reporting Messages, in line with feedback from the Corporates Working Group.
Will bulk payments be covered?
Swift will work with the Corporates Working Group to define and prioritise the roadmap for the next messages to be covered with the ISO 20022 standard for corporate payments. Bulk payments continues to be a topic of interest in those discussions.
The roadmap will be communicated during our community webinars. To stay in the know, make sure your operational contacts are up to date and that you have updated your commercial communications preferences in the Swift Preference Centre.
Messaging services
Can SCORE participants continue to use FIN beyond November 2025, the migration deadline of ISO 20022 for CBPR+ payments?
Financial institutions have until November 2025 to migrate to ISO 20022 for interbank cross-border payment instructions, but corporates are not mandated to make the change. However, Swift encourages corporates to adopt ISO 20022 as soon as possible to benefit from the rich and structured data capabilities enabled by ISO 20022 as it provides a unique opportunity to simplify and improve the end-to-end process.
Message exchanges in the Swift for Corporates (SCORE) service will continue as they are for the foreseeable future, however we do encourage corporates to speak to their banks so that all parties can align on their ISO 20022 migrations and the changes required.
If you have questions about the interbank migration deadline in November 2025, refer to our Knowledge Base tip.
How does FINplus compare to FIN?
FINplus is the Swift store-and-forward, message-processing service that supports the secure and reliable exchange of ISO 20022 messages between Swift users and corporates. It enables financial institutions that are currently using the FIN service to exchange financial transactions in MT format, with the necessary environment to exchange the richer ISO 20022 format messages.
FINplus allows for exchanging ISO 20022 messages with Swift network and message validation, a centralised translation service with legacy FIN formats, etc. Additionally, Transaction Manager will be able to capture data from FINplus flows and maintain its integrity throughout the chain.
For more information, read the FINplus Service Description or enroll in the course ISO 20022 for payments with the Moving from FIN to FINplus: Fundamentals.
SCORE participants can continue to use FIN as they do today. However, we will consider this channel as a legacy channel between corporates and banks.
Read the FINplus Service Description
How does FINplus compare to FileAct?
FileAct serves as a proprietary channel facilitating communication between corporates and their banks. The accuracy, and validity of content in files sent by FileAct depends on the bilateral agreement and validation of senders and receivers. FINplus allows for exchanging ISO 20022 messages with Swift network and message validation, a centralised translation service with legacy FIN formats, etc. Additionally, Transaction Manager will be able to capture data from FINplus flows and maintain its integrity throughout the chain.
SCORE participants can continue to use FileAct as they do today. However, we will consider this channel as a propriety host to host channel between corporates and banks.
Payment initiation in Transaction Manager
Will payment initiation become visible in Transaction Manager?
Transaction Manager orchestrates payments on the Swift network by guaranteeing that complete rich data is protected and shared end-to-end based on the community-agreed business validation rules, data integrity rules and visibility rules.
It is directly embedded into our messaging systems meaning that you benefit from it for all your in-scope transactions. You do not need to opt-in to benefit from Transaction Manager. For more information, read the Transaction Manager Business Processing Rules.
Our plan is to extend transaction management orchestration to payment initiation in ISO 20022 in 2025.
APIs
Will payment initiation over API be possible?
We plan to introduce API connectivity for connected corporate–to-bank payment initiation flows after a successful pilot, based on the same usage guidelines that apply to the ISO 20022 payment initiation messages.
Will cash reporting over API be possible?
Corporates and their banks now have access to Instant Cash Reporting, our new standardised cash reporting API. Through our multi-bank API gateway, corporates can request and view account balance information, statements, and transaction summaries from the banks that support this API. All of this data will be available in the ISO 20022 messaging format, nearly instantly and in a structured, consistent way.
Companies that adopt Instant Cash Reporting will be better placed to streamline reconciliation, improve the accuracy of their cash forecasts, and enhance the quality of their data.
How to get ready to exchange ISO 20022 flows on FINplus
How can corporates on SCORE, and their vendors/partners, prepare to exchange ISO 20022 flows on FINplus?
The best way to prepare is to refer to our readiness materials:
- FINplus Service Description
- ISO 20022 for Financial Institutions Customer Adoption Guide
- FINplus for Corporates Usage Guidelines[AO1]
- ISO 20022 for Corporates fact sheet
How can banks on SCORE, and their vendors/partners, prepare to exchange ISO 20022 flows on FINplus?
The best way to prepare is to refer to our readiness materials:
