The End of Coexistence is near: Banks Take an Existential Leap Towards ISO 20022
Introduction
TLDR: The financial industry is adopting ISO 20022, a global data exchange standard, with major economies and currencies like USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY, AUD, and CAD leading the way. By mid-2024, key systems like CHIPS (US) and CHATS (HK) had joined, and by April 2024, 68.5% of Swift payment instructions were in ISO 20022. Swift, supported by a Board taskforce and aligned with PMPG and CPMI, has set a November 2025 deadline for migrating to ISO 20022 to enhance cross-border payment efficiency. The decision ensures operational continuity and interoperability.
Continue reading for extended lists of financial messages and their deadlines!
This adoption of ISO 20022 is revolutionizing the financial industry by providing a more structured and detailed standard for electronic data interchange between financial institutions. Major economies and currencies, such as USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY, AUD, and CAD, are at the forefront of this transition. This shift allows for enhanced efficiency and reliability in financial transactions. By mid-2024, key payment systems like CHIPS (US) and CHATS (HK) joined this movement, marking significant progress. By April 2024, 68.5% of payment instructions on Swift were in ISO 20022 format, highlighting the widespread acceptance and implementation of the standard. It’s clear that the industry is aligning with this comprehensive standard to streamline operations and improve data quality.
To enhance the efficiency of cross-border payments, Swift, with support from a Board taskforce and alignment with the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG) and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), has established a coexistence period for MT (Message Type) and ISO 20022. This period will end in November 2025. This harmonized approach is a cornerstone of CPMI's agenda to improve global payment systems. The Swift Board reaffirmed this commitment in March 2024, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing instruction messages to maintain operational continuity and interoperability. This ensures a seamless transition and minimizes disruptions in the payment ecosystem. The financial community’s dedication to this transition is a testament to the necessity of embracing modern standards.
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Big priority: Instructions
TLDR: Swift's softens the November 2025 deadline for the end of MT/MX coexistence. Instruction messages are prioritized to ensure end-to-end interoperability and compliance. Converting ISO 20022 transactions to MT standard risks data loss, so ISO 20022 is necessary for accurate and detailed data exchange. From November 2025, MT instruction message types will be withdrawn or face significant disincentive charges for non-compliance. This encourages the swift adoption of ISO 20022 to ensure better user experience and compliance.
This prioritization is crucial because ISO 20022 cross-border instructions are essential for maintaining end-to-end interoperability between financial institutions (FIs) and payment market infrastructures (PMIs). Ensuring that data, especially information related to payment parties, is not lost or truncated during processing is vital for compliance. This integrity cannot be guaranteed if a transaction originating in ISO 20022 is converted to the less detailed MT standard during its cross-border journey. Thus, the ISO 20022 standard is necessary for providing accurate and detailed data exchange. The industry’s push towards this standard underscores the importance of maintaining data fidelity from origination to completion, ensuring that no critical information is lost in translation.
To drive the adoption of ISO 20022, several MT instruction message types will be withdrawn from the FIN service starting in November 2025. For other instruction MTs, additional technical validation and significant disincentive charges will be implemented. Messages that fail validation will be negatively acknowledged (NACKed). These disincentive charges, not covered by Swift Essentials and Fixed Fee arrangements, will increase over time. This strategy aims to encourage financial institutions to adopt ISO 20022 within the agreed timelines, ensuring an improved end-user experience in payments. Detailed information on the expected technical validation and charges will be shared before Q4 2024, giving institutions ample time to prepare. By imposing these measures, Swift intends to drive the community towards full adoption, recognizing that the benefits of ISO 20022 in terms of data richness and interoperability are critical for the future of global payments.
Instructions financial messages: Deadline November 2025*
- MT101 (interbank) Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pain.001)
- MT102 to be Removed
- MT102 STP to be Removed
- MT103 Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.008)
- MT103 STP Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.008)
- MT103 REMIT to be Removed
- MT200 STP Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.009)
- MT201 to be Removed
- MT202 Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.009)
- MT202 COV Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.009 COV)
- MT203 to be Removed
- MT205 Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.009)
- MT205 COV Additional technical validation and charges (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.009 COV)
* MT 103 AND MT 202 REJT/RETN (equivalents to pacs.002 and pacs.004) also are impacted by the end of MT/MX coexistence.
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What about Non-instruction Message Types?
TLDR: Non-instruction message types, such as reporting and statements, will be deprecated later. Financial institutions are advised to transition to ISO 20022 equivalents soon due to their richer data and better alignment with instructions.
Community consultations have shown strong support for focusing first on instruction messages. Therefore, other FIN/MT message types, including reporting and statements, will not be immediately withdrawn from the FIN service in November 2025. These message types will be deprecated, meaning they will no longer be maintained by Swift, and disincentives will be introduced later. Financial institutions are strongly advised to switch to their ISO 20022 equivalents as soon as possible. ISO 20022 reporting messages offer much richer data and are better aligned with ISO 20022 instructions, making the transition highly beneficial. The enriched data capabilities of ISO 20022 enable more comprehensive reporting and analysis, enhancing the overall functionality and value of financial data management. Adopting ISO 20022 for these message types will streamline operations and improve data quality, aligning with the broader industry push towards modernization.
Non Instructions financial messages (Reporting): End of coexistence November 2025
All the following messages will be Deprecated, but supported after November 2025
- MT210 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.057)
- MT900 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.054)
- MT910 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.054)
- MT920 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.060)
- MT935 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.053)
- MT940 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.053)
- MT941 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.052)
- MT942 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.052)
- MT950 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.053)
Non Instructions financial messages (other message types): End of coexistence November 2025
The following messages will be Deprecated, but supported after November 2025
- MT190 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.105)
- MT191 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.106)
- MT290 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.105)
- MT291 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.106)
- MT990 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.105)
- MT991 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.106)
- MT110 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.107)
- MT111 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.108)
- MT112 (CBPR+ equivalent camt.109)
- MT104 (CBPR+ equivalent pain.008, pacs.003)
- MT107 (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.003)
- MT204 (CBPR+ equivalent pacs.010)
Other messages with different timelines of retirement
- MT199 (CBPR+ equivalent trck.001, 002, 003, 004, 005 - camt.110, 111 - admi.024) Tracker notification: deprecated, but supported after Nov 2025 E&I use cases. Retired after Nov 2026 Correspondence. Retired after Nov 2026
- MT299 (CBPR+ equivalent trck.001, 002, 003, 004, 005 - camt.110, 111 - admi.024) Tracker notification: deprecated, but supported after Nov 2025 E&I use cases. Retired after Nov 2026 Correspondence. Retired after Nov 2026
- MT999 (CBPR+ equivalent admi.024) Correspondence. Retired after Nov 2026 (replaced by admi.024) Other use cases. No end to coexistence
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On Payment Exceptions and Investigations
TLDR: Swift's Case Manager will replace unstructured MT messages for managing payment exceptions and investigations with structured ISO 20022 messages. For exception and investigation messages (MT19X, 29X, 99Xs) the MT usage has been extended until November 2026.
The Case Manager product is designed to streamline the process of handling exceptions and investigations, offering a more structured and efficient approach. This product, included in Swift Essentials, aims to replace unstructured MT messages with a centralized service for managing exceptions and investigations. It can be updated and accessed using structured ISO 20022 messages, an API, or a GUI. Swift plans to introduce this product to early adopters in 2025 and to the broader community in 2026. According to the current timeline, the use of MT for exceptions and investigations will end in November 2026. This centralized approach aims to improve the accuracy and speed of resolving issues, benefiting all stakeholders involved in the payment process. The industry’s shift towards structured messages for exceptions and investigations will enhance the efficiency and transparency of these processes.
Exceptions and Investigations financial messages: Deadline November 2026
- MT192 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.055, camt.056)
- MT195 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.110)
- MT196 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.029, camt.111)
- MT199 to be Retired for E&I use-cases (CBPR+ equivalent camt.110, camt.111)
- MT292 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.056)
- MT295 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.110)
- MT296 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.029, camt.111)
- MT299 to be Retired for E&I use-cases (CBPR+ equivalent camt.110, camt.111)
- MT992 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.056)
- MT995 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.110)
- MT996 to be Removed (CBPR+ equivalent camt.111)
ISO 20022 for Corporate-to-Bank (C2B)
TLDR: While there is no mandatory migration for C2B flows, adopting ISO 20022 offers benefits such as standardized data and improved automation. Guidelines for C2B usage will be piloted in June 2024.
Although there is no mandatory migration or end of coexistence planned for corporate-to-bank (C2B) flows, transitioning to ISO 20022 offers significant advantages. These include a common end-to-end standard and rich, structured data that improves automation. In line with IR 887 (June 2023), ISO 20022 usage guidelines for C2B have been developed and agreed upon by a working group of corporates and banks. These messages will be piloted in June 2024 and available on FINplus for SCORE participants from November 2024. The adoption of ISO 20022 for C2B flows can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of corporate transactions, providing a more seamless and integrated approach to managing financial data. Corporates that transition to ISO 20022 can expect reduced processing times, fewer errors, and improved compliance with international standards. This transition is an opportunity for corporates to modernize their financial communications and benefit from the enhanced capabilities of ISO 20022.
Conclusion
TLDR: The migration to ISO 20022 is crucial for the financial industry's future, enhancing data quality, interoperability, and efficiency. Financial institutions must prioritize this transition by November 2025 to ensure compliance and improved payment services. The fact that Swift is extending the November 2025 deadlines for the end of MT/MX coexistence on statements and reporting (MT900s, 910s, 940s, and 950s), and on exceptions and investigations (MT19xs, 29xs, and 99xs) does not mean that financial institutions have the permission to delay the transition to iso20022.
Embracing ISO 20022 will position institutions to better handle the demands of a rapidly evolving financial environment. The migration to ISO 20022 marks a significant step forward in the financial industry's evolution, promising enhanced data richness, interoperability, and efficiency. The end of the coexistence period in November 2025 underscores the industry's commitment to this global standard. While challenges remain, particularly for non-instruction message types and exceptions and investigations, the path forward is clear. Financial institutions must prioritize this transition to ensure compliance, operational continuity, and an improved end-user experience in the global payments landscape. This transition is essential for ensuring that the financial industry remains robust, efficient, and capable of meeting future demands. The commitment to ISO 20022 reflects the industry's recognition of the need for modern, efficient, and secure financial communication standards.
