As the November 2025 deadline approaches for the end of the ISO 20022 coexistence period, the global payments community faces a decisive juncture. With only six months to go, the migration to ISO 20022, particularly for cross-border payments and reporting (CBPR+), is accelerating but still lags behind full readiness. The recent Bottomline webinar, EMEA - ISO 20022 Webinar – 6-Month Countdown Begins!, sheds light on the current status, remaining challenges, and strategic opportunities for financial institutions (FIs) and banks across the region.
Migration Status: Progress Made, But Gaps Remain
According to Swift, as of the end of April 2025, 38.5% of global cross-border traffic on Swift was ISO 20022 native. While this marks significant progress, it remains short of the critical mass required for universal efficiency and interoperability.
Egle Skomskyte, Senior Payment Market Expert at Swift, noted that approximately two million ISO messages are currently processed daily, with two thousand 2,000 BIC institutions initiating ISO-native payments, which is only a fraction of the 7,500+ entities in scope. That leaves around 5,000 institutions yet to send ISO messages, highlighting a pressing need for action.
“We are not there yet,” said Skomskyte. “November is close, and the testing phase alone demands adequate preparation time.”
The November deadline focuses on payment instruction messages in categories 1 and 2 under the CBPR+ umbrella. Other message types, such as direct debits, charges, reporting, and other common group messages, will be supported past November 2025, with their end-of-coexistence timelines yet to be confirmed.
Compliance and Contingency
Swift is offering a contingency service for non-compliant institutions post-November: a chargeable MT-to-ISO conversion utility aimed at smaller or delayed players. However, this is a “last resort” and not a substitute for full ISO readiness.
It’s critical to understand that while CBPR+ is a Swift-led initiative, market participants must also align with local infrastructure and domestic mandates.
Industry Support and Technology Enablers
Frédéric Viard, Head of Product for ISO 20022 at Bottomline, emphasised the role of technology partners in easing the transition. Bottomline provides transformation and enrichment solutions for ISO translation, enabling institutions to bridge legacy gaps. Yet readiness is uneven.
“Major players like HSBC have been ISO-ready for some time. Others are waiting on summer system releases to begin full testing,” Viard said, cautioning against migration bottlenecks as the deadline nears. This theory is supported by Swift, who said they are expecting 50% adoption by the end of June 2025.
The prioritisation of ISO adoption also varies by business model. Asset managers and private banks, for whom cross-border payments are peripheral, may try to delay migration until later in 2025.
HSBC: A Strategic ISO 20022 Use Case
For HSBC, ISO 20022 is not a compliance checkbox but a long-term strategy to modernise payments. Sara Amara, Head of Currency Clearing EUR, outlined four core benefits the bank is experiencing:
- Richer Data for Automation: Structured, machine-readable fields improve straight-through-processing (STP), lower manual interventions, and enhance operational efficiency.
- AI Integration for Risk and Routing: ISO data enables AI-driven fraud detection, smart routing, and real-time predictive alerts that improve both compliance and customer experience.
- Enhanced Transparency: Clients benefit from improved reconciliation, real-time cash visibility, and better liquidity forecasting.
- Operational Efficiency at Scale: With 4.5 million payments processed daily, ISO supports HSBC in reducing exception handling and improving data quality, all whilst freeing up internal resources for higher-value activities.
"ISO 20022 is not just a message format,” Amara noted. “It’s transforming how we serve clients end-to-end.”
Addressing Barriers: People, Platform, Partnership
Sara Amara also stressed that successful adoption depends on overcoming three key barriers: legacy infrastructure, mindset shifts, and ecosystem collaboration.
Many institutions have opted for quick fixes such as message mapping. While this allows surface-level compliance, it sacrifices the benefits of structured ISO data. HSBC, by contrast, has prioritised ISO-native implementation by embedding structured data into its core systems to unlock full value in screening, routing, and liquidity forecasting.
“It’s a language change. We’ve used MT for over 50 years,” said Amara. “This is about large-scale execution and rethinking payment processes across the board.”
Market Perspectives: Adoption, Benefits & Outlook
Webinar polls revealed a varied picture:
- Top perceived benefit: 25% cited the ability to leverage structured data.
- Other leading benefits: Improved transparency (21%), fraud monitoring (18%), and reduced friction (16%).
- Cost reduction, while acknowledged as a future benefit, remains minimal today (1.5%) due to ongoing implementation expenses.
Further polling showed that only 19% of participants are already leveraging ISO 20022 benefits, while 22% are still awaiting the end of the coexistence period before acting.
A Catalyst for the G20 Cross-Border Payments Agenda
ISO 20022 is foundational to the G20’s 2027 goals for faster, cheaper, more transparent, and inclusive cross-border payments. As Skomskyte emphasised, harmonised messaging standards are critical to overcoming fragmentation and enabling seamless end-to-end payments across domestic and international rails.
Amara added that ISO also plays a vital role in financial inclusion, helping standardise data formats across geographies and supporting emerging platforms like China’s HVP+.
Prepare, Test, Act
The message from Swift, HSBC, and Bottomline is clear: the time to act is now. The full benefits of ISO 20022, such as automation, transparency, risk reduction, and interoperability, will only become evident when adoption reaches critical mass. For the remaining 5,000 institutions, the six-month countdown is both a deadline and a last window of opportunity.
Click here to watch the on-demand webinar recording in full.