ISO 20022

ISO 20022

What Is ISO 20022?

ISO 20022 is a globally accepted standard for creating messages for the financial services industry. These messages may convey various types of transactions, for example a payment instruction, or information such as an account statement between the parties involved.

Customer-Bank Messages

On behalf of the Payments Committee Switzerland (PaCoS), recommendations for a Swiss market practice (Swiss Payment Standards) for customer-bank data exchange are being formulated and published based on the ISO 20022 messages. They cover the business areas of cash management reporting and payment instruction placement.

In addition to the Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC/euroSIC) regulations, the Swiss Payment Standards (SPS) also take into account the requirements of the European Payment Council for SEPA and for cross-border payments via the SWIFT network.

Swiss Payment Standards

The Swiss Payment Standards (SPS) are summarized in the Business Rules and Implementation Guidelines (IGs). Every November an ordinary standard release takes place. An overview of the currently valid versions and from February the versions for the next release is presented below.

The older versions are available in the archives.

The Implementation Guidelines published as part of SPS 2024 contain, among other things, adjustments for the introduction of instant payments in the SIC system. For the most important changes, please refer to the previously published consultation reports.

The adjustments for instant payments and the associated BTC will already be applied with the introduction of instant payments planned on 20 August 2024, provided that a financial institution offers the corresponding service.

Existing customer implementations only need to be adapted if the new services are to be used.

The definitions and rules in the above guidelines must be supported by all financial institutions as of 18 November 2024, following the SIC release over the weekend.

The Swiss financial institutions guarantee the following interface compatibility: that they will support the latest "Major" version of the Implementation Guidelines published by SIX Interbank Clearing plus the preceding version.

Due to the message version change with SPS 2022, a three-year parallel use was agreed for the SPS 2021 IGs until November 2025.

Change requests can be submitted via consultations@paymentstandards.ch at any time.

Interbank Messages

The "Implementation Guidelines for ISO 20022 Interbank Messages", which contain the rules mutually agreed upon by Swiss interbank governance bodies and committees, are binding for all SIC and euroSIC participants.

These Implementation Guidelines are an integral part of the SIC/euroSIC Handbook and therefore also part of the specification for participation in these services. Further information on formal, operational and technical aspects of participation in the RTGS services SIC and euroSIC or the SIC IP service are available on the password-protected extranet of SIX Interbank Clearing Ltd.

Implementation Guidelines

A modular approach is used for the structure of the Implementation Guidelines. They consist of a base document with general information concerning all message types, and several module documents with message-specific information, including information on the application-specific handling of individual elements. These specify how the messages are to be submitted to and received from the RTGS services SIC and euroSIC or the SIC-IP service using the ISO 20022 message standard.

The older versions are available in the archives.

The content of the SIC Platform Releases 4.11 (RTGS services SIC and euroSIC) and 5.1 (SIC IP service) of 15 November 2024, which has been defined and approved by the governing financial center committees, was announced by means of an official circular letter on the password-protected extranet of SIX Interbank Clearing Ltd. on 20 February 2024 (update on 20 March 2024, errata as of 20 June 2024).

The content of the SIC Platform Release 4.10 dated 17 November 2023, which has been defined and approved by the governing interbank committees, was announced by means of an official circular letter (incl. Release Notes, dated 20 February 2023, errata as of 22 May 2023) and published on the password-protected extranet of SIX Interbank Clearing Ltd.