What changes are coming?

Your bank may have already contacted you concerning the changes that are coming to payments and statements. All banks across the globe, are transitioning their to using the ISO 20022 XML standard. Additionally, there are changes to SEPA payments within the Eurozone.

UK

CHAPS

CHAPS payments must include:

    • Structured Addresses
    • Purpose of Payment (PoP) Codes
    • Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) for financial institutions.

Cross-border Payments via SWIFT

  • All SWIFT FIN MT messages (e.g., MT 103, MT 202, MT 205) will be retired.
  • Must be replaced with ISO 20022 equivalents:

Bank Statements

  • SWIFT MT statement formats (e.g., MT 940/950) will be deprecated.
  • Replaced by ISO 20022 CAMT formats (e.g., camt.053) for richer data and improved reconciliation

EUROPE

In October 2025, several significant changes are coming to the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) framework, primarily driven by the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR). Your SEPA format(s) will need to be upgraded to the latest versions for compliance.

OTHER REGIONS

Each geography has its own deadlines and for particular payment types. Please check with our bank to see if they are moving to XML.

What does this mean for you?

UK - if you are making CHAPS payments and/or use an MT940 format, you are likely to be affected. Your bank will be moving to the ISO 20022 XML file structure and will require you, should you not already be using a compatible file format, to upgrade to an XML/.camt53 format. BACS is not affected.

Europe - Replacement formats for EUSCT and EUCCT are available with the latest SEPA changes.

New bank formats are being developed for the current release only. Even if you are already using an XML format, it will be worth upgrading as there will be field changes to the format (and pain version) as these will not be available in older format versions.

So get ahead now and plan in your upgrade.

USEFUL LINKS

Your next step

Please contact your bank and ask them for file specifications (and for reconciliations, also a sample download file in the .camt53 standard). Please then send these to your Business Partner or to us at Professional Advantage.

We know that these changes can be stressful and we are here to help with your questions around platform compliance, availability of formats and much more.

Contact us to discuss next steps.

Email: [email protected]

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