flow briefing

Over the past few years, the banking industry has invested in various initiatives in an effort to enhance crossborder payment processing. This includes the introduction of rich and structured ISO 20022 messages and the Transaction Manager, which aim to remove friction, increase straight-though processing, and improve the speed of end-to-end payment delivery.

This briefing takes a closer look at the handling of exceptions & investigations (E&I) when a payment cannot be processed and the industry effort to aid this pain point with standardisation, automation and a new level of transparency.

The ISO 20022 era has finally begun, with an increasing volume of messages now being successfully exchanged on the network. But are you aware that the compliance with the pure ISO 20022 message format may not be enough as of end of May 2023 (expected date at the time of writing)?

As a result, the ISO 20022 and MT messages that are currently being processed without issues may be aborted in future. Let’s explore the scenarios in which this might happen.

Here comes the statement we have all been waiting for: ISO 20022 has been adopted by Swift, as well as market infrastructures (MI) in the Eurozone, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada

From the moment this project was conceived until now, a lot of time has passed – and it is great to finally see the baby take its first steps.

But, as we all know, there is a long way to go. Given the years of coexistence in front of us (in the correspondent banking space, the MT format is expected to be used along ISO 20022 until November 2025), the fact that many will start injecting their ISO 20022 cross-border payments in the months to come, and the upcoming markets migrating to ISO 20022 in the near future (e.g. UK, Asia, US), it is now important to reflect on the lessons learnt from these whirlwind first days – and how this could help all of us on the journey to optimise cross-border payments.

While ISO 20022 remains one of the most important topics in the correspondent banking space – and will likely continue to for another few years – there is another topic on the horizon with the potential to gain a similar level of industry attention: the introduction of the Swift Transaction Manager

Starting in May 2023, in-scope ISO 20022 messages and the respective translated MT messages will be automatically routed via the Transaction Manager – a central platform that will apply an additional set of rules during processing that go beyond the Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) guidelines. Thanks to the stricter rules and the overarching orchestration, the Transaction Manager promises to ensure data immutability along the payment chain and further increase payment efficiency.

We are almost there. The much-anticipated ISO 20022 go-live date is nearly upon us, and the industry is busy with the final preparations

Transaction banking, however, involves the cooperation of various actors and because of this, no matter how well prepared you are, you cannot plan for everything and must expect the unexpected. For instance, we already expect that unforeseen issues will likely emerge after the migration deadline.

That said, there are certain areas that could be susceptible to issues post-migration and are already known to the market. By considering these areas – and some last-minute tips – we can ensure a better migration experience.