After over two decades of planning and preparation, the deadline for ISO 20022 migration has finally arrived for U.S. businesses. ISO 20022 is a common global standard for cross-border transactions that uses extensible markup language (XML) syntax. It allows for richer data to be sent via payment messages, including payment initiation, interbank settlement and cash management. Specifically, the format designed to contain longer names and address information. The standard is used in more than 70 countries.

Accounts payable (AP) teams need to be aware of some critical deadlines for ISO 20022. The deadline for the CHIPS® Network, which is operated by The Clearing House (TCH), occurred last year. And soon, two more deadlines will see two more high-value payments systems migrating to the standard.

Fedwire and FedNow

The Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) is slated to implement ISO 20022 for the Fedwire Funds Service and the FedNow Service on July 14, 2025. The Fed will sunset its Fedwire Application Interface Manual (FAIM) format, replacing all FAIM messages with ISO 20022 messages. The Fed initially intended to migrate Fedwire to the format on March 10 but pushed the deadline back several months to give customers and vendors more time to prepare.

The Fed stressed that if U.S. payments systems refuse to move to ISO 20022, they run the risk of falling behind and being seen as outdated. Furthermore, the Fed posited that inaction could threaten the U.S. dollar’s stance as a global currency and increase the risk of migration of USD clearing business to other currencies or emerging payment systems.

Swift

The coexistence period for MT and ISO 20022 (MX) messages on the Swift network is slated to end on November 22, 2025. Swift noted that, for compliance reasons, data related to payment parties must not be lost or truncated along the end-to-end processing chain — which cannot be guaranteed if a transaction originates in MX and is converted to MT.

While financial institutions must migrate to ISO 20022 for interbank cross-border payment instructions by the November deadline, corporate entities are not mandated to make the change. However, Swift encourages corporates to adopt the standard as soon as possible to benefit from the data capabilities that ISO 20022 offers.

AP Preparations

Hopefully AP and treasury teams haven’t waited until now to begin any preparations for the ISO 20022 migration. However, if your team has only made some preliminary moves, now is the time to really dig in and make key changes.

Whatever step in the process your team is, it’s a good idea to tackle the project in stages. Trying to convert all domestic and international wire payments at once is a massive undertaking, even if you have great support from technology and banking partners.

Dayisi, Director, Global Payments Strategy for Delta Airlines, Inc., who is speaking on ISO 20022 migration at AFP 2025, began his team’s ISO 20022 preparation about eight years ago, first focusing on domestic payments. Converting domestic payroll and AP to the new standard proved to be a fairly simple process.

In contrast, converting international AP proved to be much more complex. The goal was to have all international payables flowing centrally through Delta’s payment hub, irrespective of where those payments would ultimately end up. That way, the payments team would always know its risk exposures.

The team targeted the countries in each region where it does the most business. In Latin America, two countries represent about 75% of Delta’s business, so those countries migrated first. In Asia-Pacific, similar to Latin America, Delta focused on the top two countries, which make up 80% of its business in the area. Europe proved to be the easiest region of all, given that most countries had moved to Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) standards.

“We were able to do Europe in one fell swoop because most of the countries were fully on SEPA,” Dayisi said. “So, by building one SEPA template, we migrated nearly all the countries we needed in Europe. Now we only have the rest of the countries in Latin America and Asia-Pacific, which are quite a few in number but only make up about 20% of our volume.”

Don’t Wait

Again, if your team has waited until now to get started on ISO migration, you will likely have a lot of work ahead. The deadlines for CHIPS, Fedwire and Swift are more for the banks than corporate end-users, but companies will be at a disadvantage if they continue to send MT messages over these networks in the coming months and years.

Dayisi advises AP and treasury teams to migrate their cross-border wire payments to ISO 20022 as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary costs and operational friction. Banks offer conversion services as a temporary workaround, but relying on them in the long term might be a costly decision. With fees increasing over time, getting ahead of migration ensures that companies can maintain control over their payments infrastructure and avoid inefficiencies. “That’s something to keep in mind,” he said.

Don't miss Najeem Dayisi's session, “The ISO 20022 Deadline Is Approaching… Is Your AP Function Ready?” at the AFP Enterprise Payments Virtual Series event, Transforming Transactions: Redefining AP & AR. This four-part, complimentary event on June 25 provides attendees with insights on modernizing and revolutionizing enterprise payments through automation, AI and more.

Fill out the form below to register for the event. To register and attend, you must have a Zoom account. Sign up here for a complimentary Zoom account.