ISO 20022: This Time, Let's Get Payments Data Right

ISO 20022: this time, let’s get payments data right | The Paypers

Parth Desai, Founder and Chairman, ioNova AI, explains how structured addressing can turn ISO 20022 from a deadline into a strategic advantage.

The Paypers

This article is written by Parth Desai, Founder and Chairman of ioNova AI on 24th February , 2026 in The Paypers (Expert Views section).

Article Summary

For 30 years, the payments industry has repeated the same costly pattern: migrate to new message formats, focus on technical compliance, defer data quality then face a crisis. From SWIFT MT in the 1990s to SEPA and real-time payments, institutions have consistently prioritized format over data readiness.

Now, three forces have aligned for the first time:

1. Coordinated mandate (EPC, SWIFT CBPR+, BIS/CPMI all requiring structured addresses by Nov 2026)
2. Production-ready technology (purpose-built platforms processing billions of transactions at sub-50ms)
3. Industry momentum (3.9M+ CBPR+ messages flowing daily)

The prize is massive: 60% of cross-border payments require manual intervention today, costing the industry $15-25 billion annually. Structured addressing delivers 98%+ STP rates, 25-30% reduction in false positives, and compound returns across compliance, fraud detection, and AI enablement.

The barriers are solved: Geographic ambiguity, scale challenges, and auditability concerns all now addressable with modern NLP and domain-specific platforms. The constraint is no longer technology; it's institutional decision speed.

This is our moment to break the pattern. Validate early. Treat hybrid as fallback, not default. Remediate data as a strategic program. The deadline is approaching, the technology exists, and for the first time in three decades, we can get payments data right.