THE FCC-7 INSIGHTS

The global shift to ISO 20022 marks one of the most transformative changes the payments industry has seen in decades. By the end of 2025, all SWIFT-connected institutions will be required to use the new messaging standard, while many major domestic and cross-border payment systems, including TARGET2 in the EU, CHAPS in the UK, Fedwire in the US, and China’s CIPS, have already made the transition or are rapidly moving toward it.

ISO 20022 introduces richer, fully standardised, end-to-end payment data, unlocking new levels of interoperability, transparency, and operational efficiency across the entire financial ecosystem. For compliance teams, the benefits are even more pronounced: regulators and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) have long emphasized the need for more structured information in payment messages. With ISO 20022’s enhanced and extensible data model, financial institutions can significantly improve screening accuracy, reduce false positives, and strengthen AML defenses.

As a flexible and future-proof syntax, ISO 20022 also opens the door to new data elements that can be introduced over time. FATF has already highlighted the opportunity to enrich originator and beneficiary information to further enhance transaction monitoring, a signal that compliance requirements will continue to evolve.

In this white paper, Neterium examines the concrete implications of ISO 20022 for compliance screening and outlines practical steps financial institutions must take to fully capture its benefits while managing the operational and regulatory challenges of adoption.