The implementation of ISO 20022 has been a multi-year endeavour, with banks worldwide aiming for full adoption by 2025. However, varying adoption rates across jurisdictions and the coexistence of legacy systems with the new ISO format continue to create operational challenges for banks.

Atul Jain said, "We are 18 months into this coexistence period. During this time, while the major payments market infrastructure players have adopted the standard — including the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system T2, the Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS), and CHIPS, the largest private-sector USD clearing and settlement system globally — only slightly more than 25% of the market overall has followed. At Deutsche Bank, we have placed ISO 20022 at the heart of our payments platform and data strategy to enable frictionless payments, enhanced compliance, increased speed, and reduced costs.”

According to Jain, the key to accelerating adoption is improving infrastructure — including compliance systems, client data repositories, and digital customer interfaces — while ensuring security and privacy. An educational component is also crucial, helping all players in the organisation — sales, service, and operations teams, along with their infrastructure partners — derive comfort with the new standard. "Different parties are at varying stages of adoption and scale, and managing this complexity within their own operational contexts and timeframes remains the biggest challenge in delivering on the promise of seamless straight-through processing," he said.

Jain emphasised that, at its core, the new standard aims to enhance customer experience, improve payment traceability and timeliness, strengthen fraud detection, and drive innovation. "In the realm of cross-border trade, where there remains significant complexity on account of the number of counterparties, various regulations, and compliance-related checks, this is an exciting opportunity to improve sanctions screening and AML (anti-money laundering) controls," he said.

“Another key benefit of ISO 20022 is its potential to help drive client innovation, including value-added services to improve receivables tracking, reconciliation, and liquidity management and forecasting.”

Jain believes however that the true ‘superpower’ of this standard lies in the innovation that will be driven by collaboration and co-creation, as it brings together banks, fintechs, market infrastructure players, and corporate customers onto a common platform.