The start of the migration to ISO 20022 for cross-border payments and reporting in March 2023 marked a significant milestone for the payments industry. It showcased some of our core values around operational excellence, innovation, and close collaboration with our community being demonstrated with action.
Since the start of coexistence, an average of 600,000 ISO 20022 messages were exchanged every business day between 1,000+ sending institutions and 5,600+ receiving institutions in more than 200 countries. Other indicators remained stable since the previous edition of ISO 20022 in bytes. A monthly summary is provided in the ISO 20022 Document Centre.
Our value-added products and services, like the Tracker, Swift’s Transaction Screening Service (TSS) and Payment Controls Service (PCS), continue to successfully process ISO 20022 messages.
Start of Transaction Manager build-up
The build-up of live payments transactions in Transaction Manager started on 27 May 2023, with transactions that contained rich data being prioritised. This is a key milestone that takes us one step closer towards our strategic goal of enabling instant and frictionless transactions. All ISO 20022-originated payments will be processed by the Transaction Manager by the end of September 2023.
Please see Knowledge Base article 5026014 for the latest status of the traffic build-up.
Bank of England’s RTGS is live
On 19 June 2023, the Bank of England’s real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) CHAPS went live with ISO 20022 in a ‘big bang’ mode. We continue to support various Market Infrastructures (MIs) and communities with ISO 20022 adoption:
- For those that are yet to start the journey, the ISO Accelerator Pack is a cost-effective and efficient solution to facilitate faster implementation and harmonised adoption. For more information, please consult the latest information sheet or contact your local Swift representative.
- To help Market Infrastructure operators better prepare, plan and adopt ISO 20022 and HVPS+ usage guidelines, the MI Adoption Guide is available. It contains timelines, checklists, proposed steps and resources.
- In addition, a MI Adoption Guide for Participants has just been made available to support financial institutions participating in MIs adopting ISO 20022.
Test the CBPR+ Standards Release 2023 messages
In November 2023, the next collection of CBPR+ usage guidelines will go live. We refer to that extra set of messages as the “CBPR+ SR (Standards Release) 2023 messages.
Those CBPR+ SR 2023 messages are available for testing in MyStandards – on the Readiness and the Translation Portal – and the FINplus ITB Future service for partners.
They will be available for testing the FINplus Pilot Future service from 23 July 2023. And, shortly after in the Swift Test Sparring Partner.
Please note that usage guidelines covering the messages that went live in March 2023 and the SR 2023 messages will all be gathered into a single collection on 20 July 2023. This is a purely administrative change and won’t have any impact on the scope, content, or above testing plan.
RMA 2023 milestones
Last time we indicated that another Relationship Management Application (RMA) bootstrap exercise will be organised once again this year. Here is the latest planning.
- Authorisations will be bootstrapped for camt.107, camt.108, camt.109 and camt.058 messages, based on existing FIN authorisations for MT 110, MT 111, MT 112 and MT 292 respectively. The bootstrap is planned for 9 September 2023.
- As in 2022, there will also be the option to bootstrap authorisations for camt.052, camt.053 and camt.054 messages, based on observed FIN Category 9 traffic. If interested, you need to opt-in through this e-order form by 28 July 2023. Execution is planned for 9 September 2023.
Migration from local to central RMA management is ongoing. RMA Management activation through the central RMA Portal is available for both the pilot and live environments. Please see the RMA Portal Getting Started Guide document for instructions and Knowledge Base article 5023348 for an overview of the RMA Evolution roadmap. Webinars are being planned for later in the year, so look out for registration invites.
Payment Initiation Relay Rulebook
Financial institutions that relay payments on behalf of their customers through MT 101 will need to migrate that traffic to pain.001 interbank relay on FINplus by the end of the coexistence period. The ISO 20022 Payment Initiation Relay Rulebook was published in March to facilitate these efforts and replaces the FIN Service Level Master Agreement.
We are hosting webinars to provide answers to frequently asked questions like ‘How can I do that?’ and ‘What role does the new Rulebook play in improving my payment relay model?’. A recording of the session held on 21 June is available in Knowledge Base article 5026117. Another session is scheduled on 28 June during a time convenient for the Asia-Pacific region.
Register here.
Classroom training
Education is key on the road to native ISO 20022 adoption. Swift Learning Services continue to organise classroom training sessions on a regular basis and in different time zones:
- Dive into ISO 20022 and the CBPR+ usage guidelines to become familiar with the new standard.
- Understand the key principles of InterAct and FINplus messaging to help you migrate traffic from FIN.
- NEW – based on use cases and examples, understand the best practices that Transaction Manager is designed to drive and how to meet them.
Please see the Swift Training Catalogue for more details and info on how to register.
Documentation and Learning
- Our key ISO 20022 documentation went through another (light) maintenance cycle: the Getting Started, the Customer Adoption Guide and the In-Flow Translation Service Overview have all been updated. And as mentioned above, we recently welcomed the MI Adoption Guide for Participants to the family.
- Adoption Briefing #14 is now available on Swift Smart. It provides a complete summary of the plan for 2023 and a first taste of what’s next to come.
- Four new Swift Smart modules have been published for diving deeper into the Transaction Manager validation rules.
- Extra CBPR+ e-learning modules are in development and will be gradually published on Swift Smart, starting this summer.
