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SEPA migration to 2019 version of ISO 20022 postponed until 17 March 2024

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On 24 October 2023, the European Payments Council’s (EPC) Payment Scheme Management Board (PSMB) decided to postpone the migration to the 2019 version of the ISO 20022 XML standard for all SEPA payment messages until Sunday 17 March 2024. All other changes to the 2023 rulebook have also been postponed until 17 March 2024.

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The decision was prompted by the fact that not all parties would be ready in time for a responsible migration this year. It was discussed extensively and was not taken lightly, as the postponement has a negative impact on many PSPs and CSMs. The PSMB stressed that such a postponement could only happen once and that everyone must now focus fully on meeting the 17 March 2024 deadline.

The EPC is fully aware of the implications of this decision and appreciates the efforts of payment service providers and CSMs that had performed well and would have been ready to proceed with the migration.

Nevertheless, the EPC’s PSMB considered that the risks of an unsuccessful ISO version migration on 19 November 2023 would have affected not only the domestic SEPA transactions of the PSP communities concerned, some of which are among the largest in Europe, but also significant volumes of cross-border SEPA transactions, with potential knock-on effects throughout the SEPA area.

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