Switzerland is working for new ISO standard

Switzerland has started the countdown to a mass-market switch to the ISO 20022 standard for payments harmonisation across all consumer, corporate and bank payments. The digital payments drive will see Swiss financial institutions complete the changeover to the new standard by the end of 2017 and a corporate switch by mid-2018 at the latest.

The EU converted its payment traffic to ISO 20022 back in 2014; countries such as Japan and Australia also make use of ISO 20022. During the harmonization process, all the formats, procedures and payment slips that have evolved over time will be aligned with ISO 20022, a proven and future-proof standard.

The project, which is being overseen by market infrastructure provider SIX, marks a response to an inexorable rise in electronic payments, currently accounting for 74% of all consumer transactions. This change is not reflected in the back office however, where the cycle from billing to payment receipt continues to entail manual intervention by corporate and private customers.

In the course of the harmonisation, the currently varying direct debit procedures of PostFinance and the other banks will also be aligned, providing for an end-to-end payment process from biller to bill recipient.

The financial institutions will convert their systems to ISO 20022 by the end of 2017. Corporate customers will change over by mid-2018. The detailed program and timetable will be defined between the financial institutions and their customers. The QR-bill can only be rolled out when conversion to ISO 20022 has been completed throughout Switzerland. The timetable for introducing the QR-bill will be communicated, together with the technical specifications, by PaymentStandards.CH on 27 April 2017.