Data Strategy Briefing — August 11, 2025

Executive briefing: SWIFT’s ISO 20022 for Cross-Border Payments and Reporting (CBPR+) roadmap ends coexistence in November 2025. From that point, FIN MT categories 1, 2, and 9 will no longer be supported for cross-border payments, forcing banks to exchange ISO 20022 messages end-to-end and maintain enriched data fields for compliance, sanctions, and reconciliation.

Key data checkpoints

End-to-end MX coverage. Ensure payments platforms, correspondent gateways, and downstream ledgers can create, transform, and store full ISO 20022 MX payloads without truncation.
Screening upgrades. Recalibrate sanctions and AML screening engines to parse extended remittance data, structured party identifiers, and purpose codes included in CBPR+ usage guidelines.
Data quality monitoring. Instrument controls that validate mandatory elements (e.g., UETR, structured addresses, LEIs) and flag deviations before settlement to avoid repair queues.

Operational priorities

Testing and migration waves. Run pilot corridors through the SWIFT Test Sparring Partner and community integration platforms, retiring MT fallbacks ahead of the November freeze.
Downstream integration. Update treasury, ERP, and customer reporting interfaces so corporate clients receive richer remittance data and ISO 20022 statements.
Control evidence. Capture transformation maps, validation logs, and exception metrics to demonstrate data integrity to internal auditors and supervisors.

Enablement moves

Extend ISO 20022 data models into analytics warehouses to support instant fraud detection and cash management insights.
Document playbooks for handling investigations (camt.029) and payment status updates (pacs.002) without reverting to legacy MT messaging.

Sources

Zeph Tech modernizes payment data platforms, ISO 20022 transformations, and compliance controls ahead of SWIFT’s November 2025 cutover.