Future-proofing Corporate Treasury and Enhancing Value with ISO 20022 

EACT Breakout Session

Many market infrastructures, cross-border payments, high-value and instant payments are moving to ISO 20022. The new standard brings benefits to both banks and corporates. These include, for banks, the streamlining of payment processing, greater opportunities for automation, and reduction of the risk of false positives in screening. For corporates, comprehensive and better structured data aids reconciliation, payment transparency, and automation, especially in payment factories. The aim now is to start thinking more about the value-added services the new standard can facilitate.

From a banking perspective, ISO 20022 is already used in the interbank space, and from November 2025, the interbank space will use only ISO messages. However, to really leverage the new standard, it needs to be deployed along the full messaging chain.

Currently, within the limits of the MT format, multiple messaging versions are in use, with very little or no data validation. The need to progress had seen banks working with Swift to define standards to enable the exchange of all required information. These discussions gave rise to an option to enhance the current messaging version. But the opportunity to implement a new standard, rather than patching previous versions, was seen as a more viable and longer-term solution.

The payments story of Airbus, which has a worldwide presence with more than 300 subsidiaries, most of which are part of the company’s cash pool structure, is not uncommon. With 15 cash management banks, around 980 accounts, and a predominance of payments in EUR, USD and GBP, most of its payments are high value. These are typically intercompany payments, FX, investment-related payments, and specials such as dividend payments. It is critical that there are no processing delays.

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