With the November 2025 deadline for payment instructions drawing closer, J.P. Morgan Payments share insights from their ISO 20022 adoption journey, and lessons that may help the community.
About J.P. Morgan Payments
The power of early adoption
J.P. Morgan was committed to being an early adopter of ISO 20022 and currently accounts for about 30% of the total ISO 20022 cross-border payment message traffic on our network.
Going live in March 2023, Ciarán Byrne, Head of Global Clearing Product and Transformation at J.P. Morgan Payments, explains the rationale behind their decision: “There are several reasons why we went live with ISO 20022 with the adoption of CBPR+. Firstly, we felt it would reduce the risk of truncation during this period where MT and MX co-exist with one another. There were also technological benefits to being ready to receive which was mandatory and also send at the same time. And finally, as market leaders in clearing, we wanted to set the standard and be there to support our clients during their ISO 20022 migrations.”
While early adoption did bring minor teething issues, such as imperfections in straight-through processing (STP), these were quickly resolved. “We are fully committed to making ISO 20022 a seamless migration for our clients by providing them with access to various resources, including sharing some of the lessons from our migration journey,” Ciarán adds.
The benefits of ISO 20022 can start with improved client experiences, streamlined payment systems, enhanced STP, and more robust compliance processes, but the possibilities of what one could do with the data are where the long-term benefits will come in. However, broader industry adoption is still necessary to realise these benefits fully.
Key factors in starting your adoption journey
Ciarán emphasises the importance of clear communication across teams. Senior leadership must articulate the benefits of structured data to not only operations and product teams but also technology, sales and across an organisation in general. “Preparation is the key to success. To avoid scrambling to meet deadlines, it could be helpful to create a central team encompassing both global decision makers and local experts from product, technology, testing, operations, service, risk, legal, compliance and network management to develop milestones that need to be met in the lead-up to 2025.”
Ciarán also recommends following the CBPR+ Guidelines and the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG) recommendations and conducting rigorous testing. “It’s vital organisations test their systems internally and with clients to make sure data is intact and that there has been no data truncation or data drops, otherwise this could lead to compliance issues. While tricky at first, you need to train internal teams, especially operations, service and investigations on ISO 20022. You should also adhere to Swift’s year-on-year release timeline to avoid backlogs.”
The good news is that institutions don’t need to do all their ISO 20022 preparations at once. “We suggest that the transition follow a simple path of payment execution, advices and statements, before moving into exceptions and investigations and Corporates. Trying to implement too much at the same time will stretch testing resources and reduce the critical mass uplift experience if different participants introduce new messages at different points in the process,” Ciarán says.
Strategic thinking for long-term success
As more firms adopt ISO 20022, Ciarán recommends organisations avoid minimal compliance and instead build an ISO 20022-native back office. Ciarán warns that firms shouldn’t take the ‘lowest common denominator’ approach to compliance with the new standard. Instead, institutions should be building up an ISO 20022 native back office.
“We’ve observed institutions that are taking the minimum compliance approach have experienced challenges when delivering against multiple migration deadlines,” says Ciarán. “Make sure to allocate enough time for testing and to focus on data quality, and training internal teams, particularly in operations and service, because this is essential to ensuring a smooth transition.”
Leading the way forward
J.P. Morgan Payments’ experience highlights the importance of early preparation, strategic thinking, and cross-industry collaboration. “We’ve been leaders in this space and remain fully committed to helping the industry transition smoothly,” Ciarán says. “This migration is key to futureproofing the payments ecosystem and unlocking the full potential of enriched data.”
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