In line with a March 2020 deadline, EBA Clearing, AusPayNet and Payments Canada have converted their large value payments systems to accommodate the new data rich messaging format ISO 20022.
The switchover to ISO 20022 has been progressively delayed as the technical challenges to an industry-wide upgrade and efforts to ensure harmonisation of the standard in different jurisdictions play out.
While the Federal Reserve has pushed back the switch to single day Big Bang migration in 2025 and the Bank of England sets a June deadline, EBA Clearing's Euro1, AusPayNet's HVCS and Payments Canada's Lynx payment system are among the first to realise the goal.
The upgrade to Euro1 coincides with the launch of the Eurosystem's new ISO20022-enabled T2 wholesale payment system, which comprises an RTGS system and a central liquidity management tool.
Erwin Kulk, head of service development and management, EBA Clearing, says: “With this migration, we have put the powerful functionality of Euro1 and its extremely high levels of availability and robustness onto the latest technology rails. Our users can now leverage the liquidity efficiency and cost effectiveness of the system during longer opening hours and extend to their customers the benefits of structured data based on international standards.”
Similar sentiments are expressed at Payments Canada, with early adopters expecting to realise the benefits of the new format at a faster pace than laggards.
As Royal Bank of Canda EVP Ramesh Siromani explains: "Today’s announcement will allow us to continue to deliver innovative payment products which significantly improve the quality of data exchanged across the payment ecosystem by enabling key data such as invoice details, rich structured remittance, or other contextual information, to travel with each payment.”
For banks, the cut over is just the start of a complex programme of works that involves 750 new business components and more than 1900 message definitions.
The March go-live date includes a transition period through to November 2025, at which point the legacy MT format will be retired and all banks on the Swift network will be required to comply with the new ISO 20022 standard.
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