The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has directed all financial institutions to on or before November 2022, migrate to a new standard for exchanging electronic messages known as ISO20022.

The ISO20022 Standard (International Organization for Standardization 20022), is an increasingly established global language for payments messaging, currently in use in cross-border payments in over 70 Countries.

ISO20022 will create a common language and model for payments data, improving significantly the quality of data across the payment’s ecosystem, richer, structured to build client confidence while improving compliance and efficiency.

The CBN on Tuesday released a circular titled, “ISO20022 Swift Updated Timeliness for Migration,” and signed by Sam C. Okojere, Director, Banking Service Department.
In the years ahead, ISO20022 will be the defacto standard for high-value payment system in reserve currencies, supporting 80 per cent of global volume and 87% of value of transactions worldwide.

In view of this and the COVID-19 Pandemic, SWIFT has set new timelines to November 2022 for the various activities leading to ISO20022 migration as follows: In 2020, there would be building of awareness about the change through the various resources SWIFT makes available and assessing the impacts in collaboration with vendors