Data-Rich Payments Become the Norm in an ISO 20022 World

The information carried inside a cross-border payment message has often been an afterthought. Getting the money from A to B was the objective. What travelled with it – beneficiary details, remittance references, purpose codes – was often incomplete or inconsistently structured.

The system worked, but it generated significant operational overhead at every point where ambiguity required human intervention. And it certainly didn’t help when a payment needed to flow through more than one system on its way between sender and endpoint.

ISO 20022 changes the underlying logic. By replacing loosely structured message formats with standardised, machine-readable fields, it shifts the baseline expectation for what a payment message should contain and how that content should be structured. 

For PSPs and MTOs managing cross-border flows across multiple corridors, this is not future-proofing. The impact is relevant today.

As one of the five trends we identified within the next phase of cross-border payments, it’s worth exploring in detail.

Table of contents 

From free text to structured data

ISO 20022 is a global open standard for financial messaging that defines how financial institutions exchange payment instructions. 

Where older formats such as Swift’s MT relied on free-text fields and rigid character limits, ISO 20022 uses an MX (XML) format that introduces structured, machine-readable elements, with each field having a defined format, position, and meaning.

The ultimate result of this is not only that banks and financial institutions are using the same format to communicate, but that that format is fundamentally richer and more useful than before.

There are several structured fields included in ISO 20022 messaging.

• Remittance information: Full invoice references, payment context, and line-item detail
• Debtor and creditor identification: Consistently formatted sender and recipient data
• Purpose codes: Standardised codes that indicate the nature of the payment
• Ultimate debtor and creditor: End-party identifiers that survive across intermediary hops
• Regulatory and compliance data: Jurisdictional references and screening identifiers

November 2025 was the definitive sunset date for Swift MT messages for cross-border payments. By the end of 2026, ISO 20022 is projected to cover the majority of high-value payment flows globally, with major clearing systems, including Swift themselves, TARGET2, CHAPS and Fedwire, having long-since migrated or in active transition.

The implication is straightforward. When data structures align across clearing systems and corridors, the ambiguity that generates exceptions is reduced at source. 

Payments carry more information, that information is consistently formatted, and the systems processing those payments can act on it without manual interpretation.

For cross-border payments specifically, where messages pass through multiple systems and counterparties, that consistency has direct operational consequences.

What changes in day-to-day cross-border payments

The structured payment messaging of ISO 20022 offers many benefits to businesses making payments across borders:

• Higher straight-through processing rates thanks to fewer manual investigations and returns
• Reduced ambiguity in beneficiary and remittance information
• Faster reconciliation within ERP and treasury systems
• Clearer tracking across cross-border journeys

To understand its impact, we can view this standardisation through the lens of those workflows where legacy formats create the most friction.

1. B2C marketplace payouts

A global marketplace sends weekly payouts to sellers in multiple countries. Under legacy formats, invoice references can be incomplete or inconsistently formatted, so payments often need manual reconciliation at the receiving end. 

With ISO 20022, the invoice ID is stored in a defined field, maps to an open receivable, and the payment is matched automatically.

2. C2C remittance to a banked beneficiary 

A worker sends money home through a remittance provider. Inconsistent beneficiary details in older formats can send a payment into manual review, which delays settlement and prompts follow-up with the MTO. 

Now, with structured sender and recipient fields, the payment validates before release and processes without delay.

3. PSP managing multiple corridors 

A PSP running payout corridors across several markets deals with formatting exceptions that vary by corridor under legacy standards. 

With ISO 20022, regulatory data and payment purpose sit in consistent fields. Payment systems can now tell the difference between a formatting issue and a genuine risk event, meaning fewer payments need manual repair.

But structured data at the point of origin is only part of the solution. 

What happens to that data as it crosses borders is where the harder problem begins.

The cross-border consistency problem

While domestic ISO 20022 adoption is accelerating, the cross-border picture is more complicated.

For example, a payment may originate on a fully ISO 20022-compliant domestic rail, carrying remittance data, purpose codes and complete beneficiary information. 

As it crosses borders, it passes through intermediaries, correspondent banks, and local clearing systems that may edit, reformat, or strip structured fields that the originating system populated correctly.

That means structured data sent from one end doesn’t guarantee structured data received at the other. In other words, the manual friction that ISO 20022 is designed to eliminate can be reintroduced mid-journey by a single intermediary operating on an older format.

For cross-border payments, sending richer payment data is only part of the problem; the real challenge is preserving it end-to-end across jurisdictions, counterparties, and clearing systems. 

This is where network-level governance can deliver consistency and ensure data survives the entire payment flow.

The Thunes solution: Network-level data discipline

As ISO 20022 adoption expands, the technical capability to send structured data becomes table stakes. The differentiator is whether that structure is maintained across the full payment journey.

Thunes acts as the stabilising infrastructure layer, so banks that are on messaging format ISO 20022 CBPR+ can connect to Thunes through pacs.008 and benefit from Thunes’ Direct Global Network.

A single network with consistent data rules 

Through a single API integration to Thunes’ Direct Global Network, businesses can transmit structured remittance and beneficiary data across multiple markets. 

Instead of relying on intermediaries and other financial institutions to preserve data integrity at each payment stage, consistent validation and formatting rules are applied at the network level. 

The result is more predictable execution across corridors and fewer interventions to address data degradation in transit.

Compliance embedded across every flow 

Thunes’ Fortress Compliance embeds regulatory and risk controls across every payment flow. 

As ISO 20022 structured fields carry more complete regulatory data, including purpose codes, ultimate debtor and creditor identifiers, and jurisdictional references, those fields need to be validated against local requirements rather than simply passed through.

Thunes ensures that richer payment information is captured, maintained, and applied in line with the rules of each market the payment touches.

Access to Thunes’ Global Network means higher straight-through processing rates, fewer repair cycles, and more predictable execution across corridors.

What to expect in 2026 and beyond?

2026 is the year structured data shifts from a compliance requirement to a competitive baseline, and the systems being built on top of it are beginning to reflect that.

For treasurers and finance teams, cleaner inbound payment data means more reliable cash visibility. Structured data fields reduce the reconciliation overhead that has historically made inbound payment matching a manual process in high-volume environments.

For PSPs and MTOs, the decline in exception volumes is a structural shift.

As more corridors migrate to ISO 20022-compliant formats, the fragmented exception categories that each corridor previously generated begin to converge toward a smaller, more manageable set. 

The organisations best positioned for that shift will be those that treat data discipline as an operational foundation.

Explore how Thunes supports structured, compliant cross-border payment flows across multiple corridors.