Payment industry experts have joined forces with SWIFT to step up the drive to move cross-border transactions to the ISO 20022 standard. 
 
In light of multiple planned migrations to ISO 20022 by high-value and instant payments infrastructures, the SWIFT community has agreed to create a common end-to-end implementation that will deliver increased efficiencies, support end-to-end STP, facilitate improved regulatory compliance, enhance the party identification process and enable new business opportunities.  
 
SWIFT convened the first Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) group – a working group of international payments experts that will formulate global Market Practice and Implementation Guidelines for the common rollout and implementation of ISO 20022 for cross-border payments. 
 
The guidelines drafted by the group will lay the cornerstone for a successful migration of cross-border payments traffic to ISO 20022 beginning in November 2021. A standardised global approach will lower the implementation cost for the industry as a whole. 
 
The start of cross-border migration in 2021 is aligned with adoption of ISO 20022 by high-value payments systems in the Eurozone, which will be quickly followed by operators in the US and UK. A four-year coexistence period will allow all members of the SWIFT community to make the switch by the end of 2025. SWIFT will provide a service to translate between ISO 20022 and the MT messaging standard to assist the community with the transition. 
 
SWIFT will also provide testing environments for institutions to ensure implementation conforms to the working group’s guidelines, and to test the translation facility. 
 
Trish McSweeney, Director of Industry Relations at CIBC, said: “It’s exciting to be involved in the renovation of the global payments system. It’s a long road we’ve embarked on, but we’re addressing a historic challenge from clients, regulators, and working to meet our own needs, especially for faster innovation and better data quality. There’s a lot do, and we have made a great start.” 
 
Paula Roels, Head of Market Infrastructures and Industry Initiatives at Deutsche Bank, said: “As the migration to ISO 20022 is a community-driven initiative, the work of this group is critical to success with a project of this magnitude. From the consideration of pain-points in the market through to challenging market practice to ensure interoperability, the group plays a vital role in identifying any potential drawbacks to timely migration as well as establishing global usage guidelines catering for all market stakeholders and the future needs of our clients.” 
 
Harry Newman, Head of Banking at SWIFT, said: “Our mission is to standardise business and operational interaction as much as possible, rendering a seamless service that banks can offer competitively to their clients. The benefits of the common rulebook within SWIFT gpi show how successful this approach is, and the work that this group is doing to create a common implementation of ISO 20022 continues the transformation of cross-border payments.”  

 
The migration to ISO 20022 is a community-driven effort that will require regular engagement from and dialogue between SWIFT’s users. SWIFT will invite the community to review and comment on the guidelines as they mature. The guidelines will be published on the MyStandards platform, allowing easy access to all interested parties. 
 
The participants in the working group include senior payments experts representing Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the Nordics, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as the International Securities Services Association