After years of migration projects, ISO 20022 is no longer just a line on a roadmap; it is a reality. The Eurosystem moved to T2 in March 2023. The Bank of England migrated CHAPS and RTGS in June 2023. Fedwire completed its migration in July 2025. And on 22 November 2025, Swift’s CBPR+ coexistence period ends. The infrastructure is in place. The ability to send richer, structured data is here, and it is everywhere.
But this raises a bigger question: Is that it? What did all of this investment really deliver? Are we, as an industry, actually better off?
The honest answer: not yet.
ISO 20022 gave us better structure, but not necessarily better facts. If a payment instruction contains the wrong beneficiary name, account, or reference, ISO 20022 simply moves more bad data in a bigger and more structured wrapper. The next era is clear and unavoidable: validate, validate, validate.
Why is validation the real game changer?
Think about the end user’s perspective. They don’t care about message schemas or field lengths. What they experience is whether their payment reaches the intended account on the first try. They notice if they receive a warning when a name doesn’t match an IBAN. They feel the pain when exceptions slow things down, or the relief when they are rare and resolved quickly.
ISO 20022 moves bytes. Validation moves outcomes.
How will validation evolve?
1. Payee verification
Verification of Payee (VoP) comes in many different forms in different jurisdictions. The latest development is Verification of Payee in EUR countries that delivers real-time confirmation of name-to-account matches with graded outcomes: Match, Close Match, No Match. This prevents misdirection and impersonation at the point of commitment. The UK has already run billions of Confirmation of Payee checks, proving how quickly customers adopt clear, useful signals.
The direction is set: EU PSPs inside the euro area implemented VoP on 9 October 2025, and those outside will have to comply by 9 July 2027.
Similar projects are underway or have already been implemented worldwide.
2. Payment pre-validation
Pre-validation means running checks before a payment even leaves the building. It ensures the account format is correct, the target corridor is reachable, and jurisdiction rules are followed. Swift’s Payment Pre-validation, for example, aims to cut non-STP rejections by more than half. But Swift is just one provider; the ecosystem of pre-validation services is growing fast.
3. Anomaly markers
Anomaly markers act like lightweight warning labels. They flag unusual payment contexts: a first payment to a new beneficiary, an unusually high amount, a suspicious reference, a change in account details, or a new counterparty country.
Keep markers human-readable, and use them to trigger actions: proceed, step-up, or hold. Over time, analyze which markers actually predict fraud or returns, and retire the ones that don’t.
Conclusion
The pipes are built. The switch is on. But the real challenge begins now: ensuring the data flowing through those pipes is correct, complete, and trusted. Validation should not be treated as an afterthought or a patch; it must be treated as a core product in its own right.
And this is where the industry is heading:
- AI + ISO 20022 = safer payments
Banks are leveraging ISO 20022’s structured data, combined with AI, to automate validation, detect anomalies, and enhance fraud prevention. - Fraud prevention gets a boost
The richer data schema enables better AML and fraud detection. Structured fields allow banks to share risk scores, flag suspicious transactions, and improve recovery processes for victims of authorized push payment fraud. - Regulatory Pressure Is Rising
From structured addresses to Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs), regulators are mandating richer data for transparency and financial crime prevention. - Operational Reality Check
Despite significant progress, many institutions are still relying on translation services rather than native ISO 20022 messaging. This creates operational disruptions and higher costs, especially as the coexistence period ends and compliance requirements tighten. - Innovation Opportunities
ISO 20022 is enabling new payment models like instant cross-border payments, Request-to-Pay, and even interoperability with CBDCs. Another hot topic is AI (Generative AI and Agentic AI) which is projected to add $450 billion in annual value to banking by 20281. Institutions that treat ISO 20022 as a platform for innovation, not just compliance, will lead the next wave of payments modernization.
Every payment should be a validated payment. Only then will ISO 20022 deliver its full value.
How SEEBURGER and Movitz can help
ISO 20022 is not just a compliance milestone; it’s a foundation for smarter, safer, and more efficient payments. But unlocking its full potential requires more than message formats; it demands data quality, validation, and integration across complex ecosystems.
SEEBURGER brings decades of expertise in integration and data transformation. Our Business Integration Suite ensures that ISO 20022 messages and other payment messages flow seamlessly between internal systems and external networks, with built-in capabilities for enrichment, validation, and monitoring. We help you turn structured data into actionable intelligence.
Movitz specializes in payment optimization and fraud prevention. From Verification of Payee to anomaly detection and pre-validation, we deliver solutions that reduce exceptions, improve STP rates, and protect against impersonation and misdirection, all while enhancing customer trust.
Together, we enable financial institutions and corporates to move beyond compliance and leverage ISO 20022 as a platform for innovation. Whether you need to accelerate adoption, improve data quality, or deploy advanced validation tools, SEEBURGER and Movitz are ready to help.
Let’s make every payment a validated payment. Contact us to start the conversation.
1 https://www.paymentsjournal.com/how-will-agentic-ai-and-gen-ai-transform-banking/ (accessed November 14, 2025)