Last reviewed: · Curated by Ohmyfin Organisation editorial.
SWIFT is the global bank-to-bank network. ISO 20022 is the message standard it — and every other major rail — is migrating to. Track any SWIFT payment free by UETR on Ohmyfin →
SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is a cooperative based in Belgium, founded in 1973. It provides a secure telecommunications network and standardised message formats that allow banks to exchange payment instructions, confirmations, and financial statements globally. SWIFT itself does not hold funds or settle payments — it only carries messages. Over 11,000 financial institutions in 200+ countries and territories are connected to SWIFT. Its core service, FIN, has historically used the proprietary MT (Message Type) format — MT103 for customer transfers, MT202 for interbank payments, MT940 for account statements.
ISO 20022 is an international standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), specifically its TC68 technical committee for financial services. It defines a methodology for creating financial message standards using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) data models. The result is a family of structured message types: pacs (payment clearing and settlement), camt (cash management), pain (payment initiation), and others. ISO 20022 is not owned by SWIFT — it is a global open standard. Any payment network or financial institution can implement it.
Why is SWIFT migrating to ISO 20022? The legacy MT format was designed in the era of telex messaging. MT messages use fixed positional fields with strict character limits — the MT103 field 70 (remittance information) is capped at 140 characters. This means a bank sending an invoice payment often cannot include a full invoice reference. ISO 20022 messages carry structured, unlimited data: full legal names, structured postal addresses, Legal Entity Identifiers (LEI), ISO 11649 structured creditor references, purpose-of-payment codes, and free-form narrative without length limits. Richer data reduces false positives in AML/sanctions screening, speeds up straight-through processing, and supports open-banking reconciliation.
The CBPR+ migration timeline: SWIFT's Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) programme mandates the migration from MT to ISO 20022 for SWIFT cross-border traffic. The coexistence period began in March 2023. During coexistence, SWIFT's translation service auto-converts between MT and ISO 20022 MX so banks on different format generations can still communicate. The coexistence period ends November 2025, after which new cross-border SWIFT payments must be originated as ISO 20022 messages. Banks that have not completed their internal migration by then risk being unable to send compliant cross-border payments.
ISO 20022 is not SWIFT-only: simultaneously with the SWIFT CBPR+ migration, virtually every major domestic RTGS in the world is migrating to ISO 20022. Fedwire (USD, US) migrated to ISO 20022 in March 2025. CHAPS (GBP, UK) migrated in April 2023. T2 (EUR, ECB) migrated in March 2023. BOJ-NET (JPY, Japan) and LVTS/Lynx (CAD, Canada) also completed migrations. This means ISO 20022 is becoming the universal financial messaging standard for both domestic and cross-border payments worldwide — it is genuinely replacing SWIFT's MT format and all other legacy proprietary formats.
What this means for tracking: both the old MT103 and the new pacs.008 carry the same 36-character UETR (Unique End-to-end Transaction Reference). Whether your bank has migrated to ISO 20022 or still uses MT makes no difference to tracking on Ohmyfin — the UETR is the same. You will start to see pacs.008 on payment confirmations from banks that have completed their CBPR+ migration, but the UETR you paste into Ohmyfin will work exactly the same.
| SWIFT | ISO 20022 | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A network (FIN) | A message standard (XML) |
| Maintained by | S.W.I.F.T. SC | ISO TC68 + Registration Authority |
| Used by | 11,000+ banks via FIN | SWIFT, Fedwire, T2, CHAPS, BOJ-NET, SEPA, ACH |
| Message families | MT103, MT202, MT940… | pacs.008, pacs.009, camt.053, pain.001… |
| Migration | MT → MX in progress | In progress on all major rails |
| UETR | Carried by MT messages | Carried by pacs messages |
No — ISO 20022 is a global open standard. Fedwire (US), CHAPS (UK), T2 (EU), BOJ-NET (Japan), SEPA, ACH, Lynx (Canada), and many other payment rails have all migrated or are migrating to ISO 20022 independently of SWIFT. SWIFT's CBPR+ programme is the largest single migration project, but ISO 20022 is a universal standard.
After November 2025, new cross-border SWIFT payment originations must use ISO 20022 (pacs.008 for customer payments). SWIFT's auto-translation service will still bridge to banks that have not fully migrated internally, but banks that have not updated their systems may face limited functionality. For end-users, payment confirmations will show pacs.008 structure rather than MT103.
pacs.008 (Financial Institution to Financial Institution Customer Credit Transfer) is the ISO 20022 XML replacement for the MT103. It carries a single customer credit transfer with structured data: ordering customer, beneficiary customer, amount, currency, value date, remittance information, UETR, and much more. It is the message format used for SWIFT cross-border customer wires under CBPR+.
No. The UETR is a 36-character UUID generated by the originating bank and carried through the entire payment chain. The format change from MT103 to pacs.008 does not change the UETR. You can still paste the UETR into Ohmyfin and track the payment identically.
Once your bank has completed its CBPR+ migration (which all major banks will have done by late 2025), you will receive payment confirmations in pacs.008 format. The key information (amount, UETR, beneficiary, value date) remains the same — the structure changes from fixed MT fields to XML elements. Most online banking portals present this in plain English regardless of the underlying format.
ISO 20022 does not change the UETR mechanism used by SWIFT GPI for tracking. The improvement is indirect: richer structured data in pacs.008 messages reduces sanctions-screening false positives and manual interventions at correspondent banks, meaning payments spend less time "on hold" for compliance queries. Faster STP (straight-through processing) means faster end-to-end delivery and more accurate GPI status updates.
No card needed. Free for ordinary users — completely free for individuals — no daily limit, no card required. Track any international wire across 11,000+ banks.
Track a payment now — completely free Or try the tracker now →