Swiss Payments

Swiss Payments

Reaching the Goal in Stages

The standardization and harmonization of payment transaction processing program is proceeding according to the implementation plan defined by the Swiss financial center.

You will find our interactive high-level roadmap below. Click on the individual elements to find out more about how the changes will proceed.

Information and recommendations for the use of payment transaction standards for the financial services sector in Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Upcoming Developments

Extension of the Parallel Use of Different ISO 20022 Message Versions

The Payments Committee Switzerland (PaCoS) has decided to extend the parallel phase for the use of the older (version 2009) and the new (version 2019) ISO 20022 message standard, as described in the Swiss Payment Standards (SPS), until November 2026. This allows the Swiss financial center to account for international developments (e. g. in the Swift environment) and enables software suppliers, financial institutions and their customers in Switzerland to plan their work required for the switch more economically and efficiently. The prolonged parallel phase is now also timely in line with the extension of the permitted character set and the adjustment to structured/hybrid addresses.

Within the framework of the SPS, the financial institutions and their software suppliers are required to accept and provide the previous message versions (pain.001.001.03, pain.002.001.03, camt.05x.001.04) alongside the new message versions up until the standard release in November 2026. Until November 2026, the relevant SPS schemes in version 2009 will be amended only if there is a mandatory regulatory requirement to do so. For the use of new elements or services, any further developments to the SPS will be only based on the latest message versions (e.g. pain.001.001.09, pain.002.001.10 and camt.05x.001.08).

What are the benefits?

Greater lead time

for complex adjustments to customer-bank interfaces.

Single start date

for the obligation to use structured addresses and the new ISO 20022 message versions as well as for recipients to process camt messages using the extended character set.

Description

The Swiss financial services sector is adapting to the international framework conditions and as of November 2022 will introduce new message versions into SIC Implementation Guidelines (IGs) and the Swiss Payment Standards (SPS). A parallel phase until November 2026 is scheduled for SPS.

Reason for the adjustment

In March 2023, Swift introduced ISO 20022 message versions in version 2019. The EPC has decided to follow suit as of March 2024. A corresponding task force  consisting of experts from SIX and PaCoS banks made extensive clarifications. It has been established that the recommended course of action would be to make the switch at or around the same time for both forwarding in SIC and placement of payment instructions by end customers to prevent loss of data and manual post-recording. RTGS already switched to new message versions for the SIC release in November 2022.

In 2026, the Swiss financial services sector is switching its payments to structured/hybrid addresses

Description

The Swiss financial services sector is adapting to the international framework conditions and as of November 2026 will be introducing the obligation to use structured or hybrid addresses, complying with the ISO 20022 standard for both foreign (SEPA, Swift) and domestic (SPS, SIC) payments.
Since March 2023, there has already been an obligation to use structured addresses for the new elements "Ultimate Debtor" and "Ultimate Creditor" for processing payments via the Swift network.

Reason for the adjustment

Swift is planning to introduce the obligation to use the structured or hybrid address for its network as of November 2026. The EPC has also announced that it will be amending the Rulebooks for SEPA accordingly in November 2026. A corresponding task force consisting of experts from SIX and PaCoS banks made extensive clarifications. It has been established that having one standardized rule is easiest and most efficient for communication and implementation purposes.

During the parallel phase (November 2022 to November 2026)

  • During the transition phase, when participants are invited to switch to the use of the structured address, the current form of entry containing two occurrences of the unstructured address element "Address Line" in combination with the structured address element "Country" will continue to be accepted. Please note that when using the unstructured address, the desired execution date must be before 20 November 2026.
  • As of March 2023, only the structured address can be used in cross-border payment transactions (payment type "X") for the "Ultimate Creditor" and "Ultimate Debtor" parties.
  • Use of the hybrid address will be possible from November 2025 for all parties and all payment types ("D" for domestic, "S" for SEPA, "X" for foreign and domestic foreign currency).
  • Use of the structured/hybrid address will be mandatory from November 2026 for all parties and all payment types ("D" for domestic, "S" for SEPA, "X" for foreign and domestic foreign currency). This means that from November 2026, when using an address, it will be mandatory to use the address elements "Town Name" and "Country" and to fill them with the correct content in every case.
  • For all payment types, the use of structured addresses is recommended as of now. The structured address can already be used in both message versions.

Example of an unstructured, a structured, a structured with “tolerance” and a hybrid address in pain.001

Description

Characters in Unicode character set UTF-8 can be used in ISO 20022 XML messages. According to the Swiss Payment Standards (SPS), the following subset of characters is permitted: printable characters of the following Unicode blocks:

  • Basic Latin (Unicode codepoints U+0020 to U+007E)
  • Latin1 Supplement (Unicode codepoints U+00A0 to U+00FF)
  • Latin Extended A (Unicode codepoints U+0100 to U+017F)

Reason for the adjustment

The previous rule (valid until November 2022) was difficult to explain and outdated. Negative feedback came repeatedly, especially from French- and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland. Consequently, the ISO 20022 PT Switzerland working group decided to make the adjustment in the course of the version change and also anticipate future developments (e.g. standardized character set for all personal register files from January 2024 – two-year parallel phase (cf. federal media release)). The SIC Implementation Guidelines were adapted accordingly.

Find Terms Related to Payments Standards and Swiss Payments in Our Glossary
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