The cross-border payments landscape is undergoing a transformation, and at the heart of this shift is the adoption of ISO 20022 — a universal standard that’s reshaping payment data communication across borders for financial institutions.
However, adoption of ISO 20022 has been uneven across markets, putting many financial institutions at risk of falling entirely out of sync with the cross-border payments ecosystem. According to SWIFT, less than a third of organizations had adopted the standard by the end of 2024. It’s a slower pace than expected, though it has picked up at the beginning of 2025.
Download part 1 of Convera’s latest report, The Payments Pulse to learn more about ISO 20022 benefits, industry adoption rates, transition challenges, and solutions.
As timelines tighten and global systems align, financial institutions must act to ensure they’re not left behind. To ensure compliance with SWIFT’s November 2025 migration deadline for international payments, organizations must either fully transform their operations on their own or partner with a trusted provider like Convera.
Financial institutions and the benefits of ISO 20022 compliance
ISO 20022 is an internationally recognized standard for financial messaging between financial institutions, providing richer data to improve interoperability in payments. SWIFT reports that ISO 20022 adoption enables up to 84% of exception messages to be handled automatically, significantly cutting down on the time and effort required for manual investigations. In addition, enhanced data quality supports more effective sanctions screening and streamlines software deployment, ultimately reinforcing compliance and fraud prevention strategies for financial institutions.
“Customer service also improves, thanks to greater transparency around payment fees, clearer remittance information and smoother reconciliation workflows,” says Joe Higginson, Director of Regional Sales, Financial Institutions, Convera. “And, beyond operational gains, ISO 20022 compliance also fuels innovation by providing data that helps financial institutions gain deeper customer insights and create new, tailored products backed by advanced reporting and analytics.”
However, unlocking these benefits comes with significant challenges, especially for financial institutions navigating the transition alone.
The cost of adopting ISO 20022 without a payments partner
Institutions that choose not to partner with a commercial payments provider like Convera face a steep path to compliance. Upgrading legacy payment systems to handle ISO 20022 messaging requires overhauling infrastructure to process structured data and retraining teams to manage new data formats and workflows. It also requires ongoing compliance monitoring across multiple jurisdictions.
Without expert support, ISO 20022 compliance can drain internal resources, delay operations, and expose the financial institution to compliance risks.
Cross-border payments transformation in action
A key complexity of the ISO 20022 rollout is that payment schemes around the world are migrating on varied timelines and with different implementation strategies. For example:
- Fedwire in the United States plans to fully adopt ISO 20022 on July 14, 2025.
- The SWIFT network will complete its transition to ISO 20022 for international cross-border payments in November 2025.
As national and regional systems evolve, financial institutions must ensure their payment flows are compatible across all channels, or risk payment rejections and operational bottlenecks.
Choosing the right partner for ISO 20022 migration
Convera has laid the groundwork to help financial institutions adopt ISO 20022 with minimal disruption. Our cross-border payments platform accommodates varying formats, timelines, and regional specifications meaning we speak all the “languages” of global payments.
Whether it’s sending or receiving ISO 20022 messages, Convera empowers our partners at financial institutions to:
- Transmit and receive ISO-compliant cross-border payments via SWIFT.
- Automatically translate between legacy and ISO formats, ensuring seamless interoperability.
- Leverage enriched data for better fraud detection, reconciliation and cash flow insights.
In short, Convera helps financial institutions future-proof their payment systems without bearing the full cost of transformation on their own. Our structured cross-border payment data offers financial institutions end-to-end visibility into global payments on both sides of the transaction. Convera offers a critical competitive advantage that unlocks greater automation, yields better customer experiences and strengthens the regulatory standing of financial institutions.
“As an industry leader, Convera’s readiness puts our clients ahead of the curve,” says, Scott Johnson, Vice President of Product Delivery, Convera. “Our systems are already equipped to support ISO-compliant payment flows, both incoming and outgoing, ensuring you’re positioned for success in a fast-evolving landscape.”
How will ISO 20022 affect my financial institution?
- Financial institutions will not be impacted if they process payments through Convera.
- Financial institutions not working with a payment provider like Convera face the following implications:
- Compliance concerns: By November 2025, your institution must be fully compliant with ISO 20022 standards for both domestic and cross-border payments.
- System upgrade: Transitioning to ISO 20022 requires significant updates to payment processing systems, including changes to message formats and data handling procedures.
- Data capabilities: ISO 20022 provides richer and more structured payment data, enabling improved compliance monitoring, better customer insights and enhanced operational efficiencies. If you partner with Convera, you will see these benefits without having to do anything.
Why is ISO 20022 important?
ISO 20022 enhances the quality and richness of data in financial messages, leading to improved processing efficiency (removing human manual intervention in messaging), better regulatory compliance, and enhanced customer experience. It also supports the global harmonization of payment systems; ISO 20022 schemas provide a high level of business validation, reducing the risks of sending or receiving incorrect data.
What is the difference between Federal Reserve’s FedNow and Fedwire ISO 20222 and SWIFT network ISO 20022?
FedNow and Fedwire pertain to domestic payments (July 2025), and SWIFT pertains to cross-border payments (November 2025). North American financial institutions need to recognize that the July 2025 deadline for the Fed applies primarily to domestic payments, while the November 2025 SWIFT deadline pertains to international payments.
What is SWIFT’s role in ISO 20022 standardization?
ISO 20022 grew out of a previous standard in the securities messaging space, ISO 15022. SWIFT was a key contributor to ISO 15022 and maintained this leading role in the development of ISO 20022.
In June 2004, SWIFT was appointed Registration Authority (RA) for the standard – a role that SWIFT continues to fulfill. The RA is responsible for maintaining and publishing the central repository of ISO 20022 content and ensuring its integrity. In its role of RA, SWIFT developed and continues to support and update www.iso20022.org
For more insights, visit our ISO 20022 FAQ page.
Fast-track your ISO 20022 compliance
“Financial institutions worldwide are at a tipping point, and time is of the essence to adopt ISO 20022,” says Johnson. “This new standard will modernize cross-border payments through streamlined operations, enhanced data quality and a more connected global financial ecosystem.”
By partnering with Convera, businesses can benefit from expert guidance through detailed consultations and customized integration strategies, making the transition to structured payment formats both efficient and effective.
For more information, go to our ISO 20022 Frequently Asked Questions page or contact your account manager.
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