This page gives a short and general overview about ISO 20022.

Definition

• ISO 20022 is a standards development methodology.
• ISO 20022 organizes financial message definitions according to business domains that are well-recognized functional domains in the industry.
• The ISO 20022 catalogue includes over 2,300 messages, covering payments, securities, foreign exchange, cards and trade services.
• The business model of ISO 20022 is a commonly and globally agreed standard for financial messages.
• ISO 20022 is a neutral definition and has to be understood as just a theoretical base on which other real business standards are built.

Purpose

• The general ISO 20022 standard is defined without respect to regional, local or legal and juristical requirement or to any currency.
• Consequently, it is essential that each clearing system must have its own rulebooks and specifications.
  Only with them the messages can be used.
• ISO 20022 acts only a theoretical base on which other standards are built.

Good to know

• Pure ISO 20022 itself is a standard, which is never supported in communication networks!
• Every network using this standard defines it's own subset and might add also, own new proprietary data requirements.
• Advantage of the ISO 20022 is that all messages can have an identical data base definition.

Examples

• Fields for a city name will always have the same length and the same character set.
• Countries will only be identified by a ISO country code instead of free text or proprietary codes.

• SWIFT is introducing for payment and reporting messages the ISO 20022 based messages until November 2025 and will terminate their current MT payment and reporting messages.
• Other countries and regions are already doing the same or are planning to migrate their payment and clearing systems in the near future.

Some clearing systems are described below.

Outgoing Payments

This application supports ISO 20022 selected outgoing payments according to the definitions and rules of below mentioned clearing systems and channels. 

Incoming Payments

Incoming payments (ISO 20022 or other formats) are not part of the application. 
Preferably in a specialized and dedicated payment application. 
In this application incoming payments might only be implemented as a proprietary solution. 

Reporting and Investigation

Reporting and investigation messages are handled differently in each clearing system. 
If implemented, then according to the definitions and rules of the respective clearing system. 

The following clearing channels have adopted ISO 20022 based payment messages and modified them according to their individual requirements.

Cross-border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) is the usage guideline that defines how ISO 20022 will be used for correspondent banking on the SWIFT network. It is a collection of usage guidelines that include messages from the payment, clearing and settlement (pacs) and cash management (camt) areas. These messages will replace their equivalents in SWIFT MT Category 1, 2 and 9 sets of messages.

The usage guidelines are publicly available on Swift MyStandards and include downloadable XML Schema, PDF and Excel specifications per each message.

More information about SWIFT Integration and about SWIFT MX CBPR+ payments.

TARGET2 is the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system owned and operated by the Eurosystem. Central banks and commercial banks can submit payment orders in EURO to TARGET2, where they are processed and settled in central bank money, i.e. money held in an account with a central bank.

Since 2008, payments in the European Union have been processed based on the framework conditions of ISO 20022 due to the introduction of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA).

Several countries will or have adopted the ISO 20022 methodology and redefined it for the domestic payments.

They are currently not supported.

Among these are the following clearing systems: