ISO 20022 for Financial Institutions
Making the move to ISO 20022
The community made the decision in 2018 to move cross-border and correspondent banking from SWIFT MTs to ISO 20022 by November 2025, using usage guidelines provided by the CBPR+ group of experts.
Based on business and technology impact assessments, you need to decide on an ISO 20022 implementation roadmap to suit your situation, your vision and your needs.
The full picture
Banks need to understand how different market infrastructure projects impact the implementation options for financial institutions, and evaluate the relative merits of a tactical versus strategic implementation.
Understanding these priorities makes it easier to build an ISO 20022 roadmap. Financial institutions can rely on industry support, products and tools along the way.
Defining market practice for FI to FI payments & reporting
To define a common best practice in using ISO 20022 for FI to FI payments and reporting, we are facilitating the collaboration across representatives of the community with the Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) group.
The working group, formed of international payments experts, will formulate global market practice, usage guidelines and translation rules for the adoption of ISO 20022.
The development of a standardised global approach will also help lower the implementation cost for the industry as a whole.
To see the CBPR+ usage guidelines, please refer to MyStandards.
Supporting the coexistence of ISO 20022 and MT messages
From November 2022 to November 2025, there will be a coexistence period during which customers will be at different stages in their ISO 20022 adoption journey. To assist the community, SWIFT will provide options to support interoperability between ISO 20022 and MT messages.
One of these options is SWIFT’s messaging-based In-flow Translation service. Customers using it receive a multi-format message with the translated MT embedded in the original MX, delivered over SWIFT’s FINplus messaging service. In June 2021, SWIFT completed a successful customer pilot for this service.
The service, available for testing as of November 2021, is enabled for existing FINplus participants and new participants subscribing to FINplus after that time. Customers need to upgrade their messaging interface to use the service. This is also a key step in ensuring readiness for SWIFT’s enhanced platform.
Read more about the service in the ISO 20022 FAQs and in the full report on the pilot exercise.
To get started with In-flow Translation, you’ll first need to subscribe to FINplus.
Messages covered by CBPR+
The following tables list the messages in scope of CBPR+ for implementation in November 2022. All usages guidelines and related documentation are published on MyStandards. For more information on the messages that are in scope of transaction manager Release 1, as well as in-flow translations, please refer to the Connectivity Guidance paper.
New ISO 20022 messages |
Usage guidelines |
pacs.002.001.10 (positive and status report on payment messages) |
Published |
head.001.001.02 (Business Application Header) | Published |
pain.002.001.10 (Response to pain.001 Interbank) |
Published |
Existing FIN MTs |
ISO 20022 equivalent |
Usage guidelines |
MT 101 relay |
pain.001.001.09 (Interbank) |
Published |
MT 102 MT 102 STP |
pacs.008.001.08 |
Published |
MT 103 REMIT |
pacs.008.001.08 |
Published |
MT 103 |
pacs.008.001.08 |
Published |
MT103 /RETN/ |
pacs.004.001.09 |
Published |
MT 103 STP |
pacs.008.001.08 |
Published |
MT 192 |
camt.056.001.08 |
Published |
MT 196 (Response) |
camt.029.001.09 (ONLY as a response to camt.056) |
Published |
Existing FIN MTs |
ISO 20022 equivalent |
Usage guidelines |
MT 200 |
pacs.009.001.08 |
Published |
MT 201 |
pacs.009.001.08 |
Published |
MT 202 |
pacs.009.001.08 |
Published |
MT 202 (with reimbursement Agents – Fields 53 and 54) |
pacs.009.001.08 - ADV |
Published |
MT 202 COV |
pacs.009.001.08 COV |
Published |
MT 202 /RETN/ |
pacs.004.001.09 |
Published |
MT 203 |
pacs.009.001.08 |
Published |
MT 204 |
pacs.010.001.03 |
Published |
MT 205 |
pacs.009.001.08 |
Published |
MT 205 COV |
pacs.009.001.08 COV |
Published |
MT 205 /RETN/ |
pacs.004.001.09 |
Published |
MT 210 |
camt.057.001.06 |
Published |
MT 292 |
camt.056.001.08 |
Published |
MT 296 |
camt.029.001.09 (ONLY as a response to camt.056) |
Published |
Existing FIN MTs |
ISO 20022 equivalent |
Usage guidelines |
MT 900 MT 910 |
camt.054.001.08 |
Published |
MT 920 |
camt.060.001.05 |
Published |
MT 940 |
camt.053.001.08 |
Published |
MT 941 MT 942 |
camt.052.001.08 |
Published |
MT 950 |
camt.053.001.08 |
Published |
How can we help?
We are committed to making this transition as easy as possible for our community and provide consulting services to support you.
To support your operating environment in its adoption of ISO 20022, we have a comprehensive portfolio of flexible and customisable support and care services. This includes a comprehensive roadmap of when to expect key documents to help customers and vendors with their plans for ISO 20022 adoption.
Test CBPR+ messages with ease
The SWIFT Test Sparring Partner is there to simulate the sending, receiving or relaying of CBPR+ messages. It acts as a fictitious institution on the FINplus test environment and allows you to test without any other counterparty involved. The SWIFT Test Sparring Partner comes with an easy-to-use web portal and offers a wide catalogue of pre-defined test cases covering the various CBPR+ messages. It is freely available to all customers subscribed to FINplus.
Is your vendor CBPR+ ready?
Access the list of vendors that have confirmed and shared their commitment to support the CBPR+ message collection, in addition to equivalent MTs.