Chronicle of an announced death
It has been almost 3 years that we hear about it without paying great attention: the "Swift" formats and the CFONB formats used by companies must be gradually replaced by their XML equivalent.
Often mentioned, the date of the last weekend of November 2025 only concerns banks. For companies, November 2026 seems to be taking shape but it is not a cleaver, just talk to your banks that will be flexible if you show them your desire to subject you to it.
Context
Since the creation of SWIFT in 1973, all interbank exchanges have been made via formats commonly called "Swift" and each code of which begins with MT (IE message type) followed by 3 figures.
After a large communication plan which lasted several years, in March 2024 Swift imposed on the banks to replace with its XML ISO 20022 equivalent the MT formats whose figures start with 1, 2 and 9. This is called MT - MX migration (for XML message). Admittedly, this obligation only concerned interbank exchanges but it now affects companies which are gradually encouraged to abandon the SWIFT formats in favor of its XML ISO 20022 equivalent, with an increasingly pressing insistence ...
Why this change of format?
The deployment of SEPA has materialized and confirmed the exploitability of the XML format, its flexibility of use and the richness of its beacons. The purpose of this change in format is double:
(1) harmonize all payment banking systems to allow the use of the XML format from start to finish (ie of the company issuing to the recipient company via their respective banks);
(2) Use the capacities of this XML format to strengthen the possibilities of filtering, monitoring and compliance.
In short, all banks around the world must now manage only in XML format to facilitate the monitoring and control of the data transported.
In addition, this replacement does not only affect the SWIFT "MT" format but also all domestic formats because the XML allows you to enter, transport and follow much more information. Indeed, a CFONB160 does not have fields where to enter the addresses, a CFONB320 does not allow the time of payment to be specified.
Finally, the richness of the XML format offers banks the possibility of offering new services that it would have been impossible to implement and follow with the old formats.
How to do it?
With each of your banks and for all the accounts concerned, you resume your banking contracts and you choose the corresponding XML services, regardless of the protocol (Swift, Ebics or other).
