As the financial industry moves closer to the CBPR+ November 2025 deadline, adopting the new global standard for payments is more important than ever, and financial institutions are required to take a strategic approach to ISO 20022 adoption for financial messaging.
The strategic importance of ISO 20022 in financial services
- Why does it matter?
- Around 1.4 million CBPR+ (Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus) messages are exchanged daily, across 150 sending and 220 receiving countries.
- By the end of 2024, approximately 32.9% of organizations had adopted ISO 20022, marking a 6% increase in the final quarter of 2024.
2. Developed by ISO and maintained by SWIFT, ISO 20022 enables semantic interoperability and data harmonization across global financial infrastructures.
It plays a crucial role in improving compliance with financial crime regulations and enhancing regulatory reporting, thanks to:
✅ Stronger AML/CTF Capabilities
- Structured Party Data: Clearly identifies ultimate debtor, creditor, intermediaries, and their roles—enabling better name matching and reduced false positives in sanctions and PEP screening.
- Payment Purpose Codes: Helps flag high-risk transactions by explicitly categorizing transaction types (e.g., charity donations, gambling).
- Geographic Traceability: Message elements include originator and beneficiary location, improving jurisdiction-based risk assessment.
✅ Alignment with Global Regulations
- Supports evolving FATF, Basel, FinCEN, and EU AML Directives through enriched and transparent data structures.
- Facilitates machine-readable reporting for real-time supervision (e.g., RegTech integration, transaction monitoring).
- Enables data lineage and auditability, critical for compliance validation and forensic analysis.
3. What are the ISO 20022 adoption milestones?
- SWIFT Cross-Border Migration: Began March 2023; coexistence with MT messages until November 2025.
- TARGET2 (EU) and CHAPS (UK) have migrated; Fedwire and CHIPS (US) migrations scheduled for March 2025.
- Over 70% of high-value payment systems globally are migrating or have migrated to ISO 20022.
The transition to ISO 20022 is not merely a technical upgrade but a strategic move to enhance data quality, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency, while ensuring faster settlements and better customer experience.
🗨️Discover our customer full case study
A prominent global financial services association, known for advancing sound risk management practices and engaging with policymakers worldwide, adopted Dassault Systèmes’ solutions to support the ISO 20022 standard.
Read more on how the association used model-driven architecture (MOF) with CATIA Magic to boost ISO 20022 adoption, and overcome their existing challenges.
🤝What are our customer benefits?
By eliminating data silos and enabling seamless interoperability, financial services organizations can improve compliance, enhance efficiency and future-proof their operational frameworks
Taherah KUHL – Vice President Business Services Industry, Dassault Systèmes
For banks, embracing the full ISO 20022 stack—from conceptual UML modeling to XML messaging—enables:
- Agile response to regulatory change,
- End-to-end transparency and auditability,
- Stronger risk-based controls in cross-border transactions.
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Global Industry Marketing Leader, Business Services at Dassault Systèmes