We’re just a few months out from the ISO 20022 CBPR+ deadline, and financial institutions globally are starting the last sprint towards readiness. By
December 2024, only 32.9% of organisations had adopted the new messaging standard, showing the hurdles that are still ahead for many.
Crucially, Swift has made it clear that the timeline will not be pushed, so organisations that don’t meet the November 2025 deadline for cross-border payments risk the consequences. These consequences could take the form of charges, but more importantly,
institutions will face severe disruption to their payment settlements.
In an era where cross-border payments are one of the best revenue drivers and offer high ROI, banks that are not ISO 20022 ready by the end of the year hurt themselves financially, operationally, and reputationally.
We’ve spoken to Andy Turner, director, global head of financial messaging product management at Finastra to understand ISO 20022 readiness in the industry as we’ve entered into the last year of coexistence.
Challenges of ISO 20022 adoption
Until November 2025, we are still in the coexistence period of old MT and new ISO 20022 messages. While Swift’s
end-of-year review shows that ISO 20022 adoption grew by 6% in the last quarter of 2024 – with an average of 1.4 million CBPR+ payments exchanged daily in the new format – overall adoption still only stands at just under a third of organisations.
Yet it’s crucial to understand why the adoption of ISO 20022 CBPR+ has been moving slower than expected. Many banks are combining their migration with overall modernisation efforts to their core banking systems, which has slowed the process of adoption.
And for good reason. In 2025, it’s not just the CBPR+ deadline that organisations are facing. Multiple regulatory and standard updates mean that financial institutions have a lot on their plates.
Other regulatory requirements include:
- The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA): DORA has started applying as of 17 January 2025, which undoubtedly took up many resources
of organisations over the course of 2024.
- European Payments Council (EPC): The EPC announced an updated to required payer and/or payee address verification with the deadline of
5 October 2025.
- PSD3 and PSR: Currently under discussion in the
European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), the 18-month transition period of PSD3 and PSR is set to begin once finalised in 2025 or 2026.
"Financial institutions are struggling to prioritise, with constant mandatory requests,” Turner stated. “So, one of the questions that will drive adoption will be: which change is the most valuable for the banks? If they invest in it, where will they be
able to see a return? We must remember that this is just the start, not the finish, of ISO 20022. Once the co-existence period finishes in November 2025, the industry will start developing enhanced use cases, making the available data more valuable.”
Doing it right – how ISO 20022 adds value
Turner emphasised that, while most organisations still analyse the risk and concerns of the actual migration, not enough focus is being put on recognising the value that lies in all the data that will be available through the ISO 20022 format.
Adopting ISO 20022 offers a plethora of opportunities for banks and other financial institutions. The data-rich format enables them to develop advanced analytics capabilities, enhance their service offerings, create new revenue streams, and strengthen anti-money
laundering (AML) and compliance efforts.
Cross-border payments is one of the fastest growing payments areas with data from
Statista showing that the global market is expected to grow to $290.2 trillion by 2030. In order to maximise the potential of international payments, financial institutions need the right capabilities to tap into this revenue stream effectively.
CBPR+ is one of the most crucial aspects of achieving this as the industry prepares to speak the same payments language. One of the best examples of how ISO 20022 will positively impact the cross-border payments space is in payment processing.
For example, with the old, unstructured MT format, the originating city and country of a payment are transmitted in the same line – which means a payment coming from the U.S. city Cuba would be flagged in the sanction screening process and generate a false
positive. With the new ISO 20022 format, this information will be transmitted in separate lines, which will reduce errors and enable more efficient data extraction.
Yet to fully be able to reap the benefits of ISO 20022, organisations need understand that this is not just an everyday upgrade. Like-for-like translation will lead to significant issues down the line, which is why legacy transformation is needed. “We know
that the transition from MT to MX involves a shift to a richer, more structured messaging format. Everyone knows what needs to happen here, but organisations are still defining the value and how it may impact them or their customers,” Turner commented.
“If financial institutions are not able to secure the important data that is relevant for processing, it could be lost, so there is a real risk of data truncation when transmitting via legacy services. If the old services are trying to push a new format,
or use an adapter to do that, will it really enable straight through processing? Or will this lead to delays and issues?”
Getting the ISO 20022 transition right is crucial, as its standardised nature allows for enhanced straight-through processing, which in turn can reduce cost, errors, and manual intervention. As the financial services sector becomes increasingly fast-paced
and competitive, this will be a key differentiator for organisations – but it can only be achieved if adoption is addressed from the ground up rather than added on to outdated, not fit-for-purpose systems.
ISO 20022 migration: What needs to happen in 2025?
Looking holistically at what needs to happen to migrate to ISO 20022 for CBPR+, there are five steps that are critical.
- Internal assessment and impact analysis
- Finding and managing partnerships
- Creating a project plan
- Testing
- Implementation and roll-out
If financial institutions have not yet started on creating internal assessments and identifying the impact of ISO 20022 migration on all areas of business, they risk not meeting the deadline. Because ISO 20022 does not only affect their own organisation,
it also affects their partners and clients, testing needs to happen both internally and with counterparties.
Turner emphasised the need for partnerships in this transition. “Don't try and build technology when there are people out there who can do it better. You can build some of these adapters and connectivity components within your own R&D teams, but when you
get into something that is quite complex like ISO 20022, you should partner with people who know better than yourself.”
Whether financial institutions are outsourcing or tackling it in-house, they need to align their teams, upgrade their legacy systems, and ensure they have clear timelines, responsibilities, and milestones to be ISO 20022 compliant by November 2025.
“It might all sound a bit dramatic, but they have to think about these big things,” explained Turner. “That's why the gap analysis, the engagement with a technical pro, and the upgrades they will have to do are going to be very specific to their business.
If they get it wrong, they will be facing significant problems.”
Financial institutions that aren’t fully ISO 20022 capable by November will experience some disruption to their business, whether it be operational, financial, or both. “We know there will be consequences for those organisations that don’t comply, so we
need to keep an open mind that the ramifications could be substantial,” says Turner. “It’s critical that organisations react now and not wait until it’s too late.”
Once the coexistence period ends, MT messages that need to be converted will be subject to additional FIN network validation and will also be flagged to recipients as having been converted.
Swift has made is clear that ISO 20022 will not be made backward compatible with MT, so MT messages that cannot be translated will be NAK’ed (non-acknowledge). In order to prevent institutions from facing these consequences, it’s crucial that organisations
are ISO 20022 compliant and compatible by November 2025.
The final ISO 20022 countdown is on
Whether it’s the G20 target agenda, CBPR+ or other regulatory bodies and schemes – cross-border payments are a priority in 2025 and beyond. The move to ISO 20022 allows financial institutions to future-proof payments, reduce friction and deliver straight-through
processing.
“You can take a horse to water, but you can't always make it drink,” Turner finalised. “You just have to keep taking it there. And eventually it’ll have to put its head down and drink. When we think about CBPR+, it’s about making it a priority and showing
financial organisations that there is value in adoption.”
While the road to CBPR+ has not come without its challenges, it’s time to focus on the opportunities. ISO 20022 is not just a compliance task – it has the potential to significantly help financial institutions enhance their value proposition, improve their
relationships with business clients, strengthen operational efficiency, better meet customer expectations, and build strategic advantages.
The stage is set, the CBPR+ deadline will not move, the steps are clear. Now it’s up to financial institutions to embrace adoption and develop the use cases to reap the benefits of ISO 20022.
Join our upcoming webinar to explore the industry's readiness for ISO 20022 for CBPR+