ISO 20022 migration

Payment systems across the world are migrating from legacy standards to ISO 20022, an international messaging standard that is expected to improve payment processing efficiency and interoperability.

In 2017, EBA CLEARING launched its EURO1 future positioning programme. Together with its participant community, the Company identified user requirements and developed a roadmap for implementation. After an extensive user consultation, EBA CLEARING and its technology partner SWIFT kicked off the ISO 20022 migration project in 2018. The development phase started in November 2019.

In line with the modified planning for the ECB T2/T2S consolidation project, the EURO1 ISO 20022 migration deadline was moved from November 2021 to November 2022.

Currently, all preparations for the migration of EURO1 to the ISO 20022 standard are proceeding as scheduled. Connectivity testing is ongoing, and user functional testing has started in December 2021.

The core structure and key benefits of EURO1 will not change through the migration to ISO 20022.  

The key change is that, instead of processing payment messages via FIN MT messaging, EURO1 will use ISO 20022’s data-rich standard, which can carry more payment information and is more flexible.

Furthermore, while readying EURO1 for the ISO 20022 migration, EBA CLEARING is bringing efficiency enhancements to key parts of the EURO1 System functionality and preparing to offer extended opening hours to its users starting in November 2022.

The industry-wide use of ISO 20022 will have far-reaching benefits for the payments industry. This includes greater interoperability between various payment systems and improved data flows, which will increase the efficiency of transaction processing and fraud detection.

Participants will be able to offer services to their corporate clients that will benefit from better and faster information and reconciliation, greater transparency and more payer-to-payee information.

In addition, the migration of EURO1 to ISO 20022 will deliver specific benefits to its participants:

• Extended opening hours, with the possibility to expand further
• Central payment and liquidity monitoring and steering capabilities across EBA CLEARING payment services (e.g. via liquidity dashboard)
• Full alignment with TARGET2, allowing continued switchability of payment flows between the two systems

• EURO1 specifications developed in cooperation with user expert group to optimally meet user needs
• Alignment of usage guidelines with TARGET2 to facilitate migration for the EURO1 Participants
• Focussed information sessions to guide participants through the migration project and the testing phase
• Solution providers to EURO1 Participants have direct access to documentation and information sessions