May 2025: On the Wire - ISO® 20022 Newsletter
Have you finalized your preparedness and contingency plans?
In less than two months, FRFS will transition to the ISO® 20022 format for the Fedwire® Funds Service on July 14, 2025. As part of your overall readiness preparations for the upcoming migration, we highly recommend that you finalize your preparedness and contingency plans as soon as possible. It is critical that you have a contingency plan in the event that you are not ready to send or receive ISO 20022 messages through the Fedwire Funds Service or your wire ecosystem is not ready for ISO 20022 messages beginning July 14.
Please review our preparedness checklists (review the checklists that apply to your profile) to help you finalize your own preparedness plan, and consider the following strategies for your contingency plan.
Contingency strategies*
- Establish new or validate existing correspondent banking arrangements (e.g., bankers’ bank, corporate credit union) through which you may send and receive payment messages on and after July 14.
- Develop a plan for how your correspondent account will be funded if you have issues (e.g., a communication plan with counterparties to route payments to your correspondent account rather than to your master account).
- Ensure you have sufficient trained staff to send ISO 20022 messages through the FedPayments® Manager – Funds application via the FedLine Advantage® Solution (i.e., manual entry message screens or import/upload feature).
- Increase staffing for manual processing of payments, including processing by upstream and downstream applications (e.g., ancillary systems like OFAC and fraud screening).
- Ensure staff reviews procedures for manually processing incoming messages (e.g., treasury management, posting credits to your customers’ accounts, reconciliation activities).
- Explore the use of an ISO 20022 message translation service.
*FRFS is providing information on actions to take to prepare for the ISO 20022 transition and potential contingency strategies for your convenience only. Your institution is responsible for developing its own preparedness and contingency plans, and FRFS assumes no liability if your institution is unable to send or receive ISO 20022 or other payment messages on and after July 14.
Only two virtual training sessions remain, and spots are limited
Sign up now to attend a FedLine Advantage virtual training session! These sessions are designed to help Subscribers assigned to the role of Funds Manager, Funds Supervisor or Funds Transfer Specialist learn more about the new ISO 20022 screens, features and functionality, as well as to have an opportunity to ask questions to our ISO 20022 experts.
The training slides are also available via the “Help” link within the FedPayments Manager – Funds application (as shown below). If you hold one of the above roles and have not received the registration information, contact us to register.
Join one of the remaining drop-in sessions
We have two remaining drop-in sessions available for you to ask all your ISO 20022 questions. These sessions are open to all customers. Register on our ISO 20022 Education page, where you can also view our series of ISO 20022 on-demand webinars.
Take the Readiness Survey by May 23
We are completing a follow-up survey to gauge institutions’ readiness for the July 14 migration. In the event that you indicate you are not ready, we want to know your contingency plan. The last wave of survey requests was sent on May 1. If your institution received the survey request from frbsurveys@chi.frb.org, please have an individual responsible for your institution’s wire operations complete and return the short survey no later than May 23. If you indicated to us that you were “fully ready” via the January 2025 survey or received a readiness survey in April 2025, you will not receive another survey. For questions about the survey, please contact us.
Incorporate the Discount Window in your contingency planning
Prepare for contingency events by including access to the Discount Window (Off-site) in your planning. The Discount Window helps institutions manage their liquidity risks efficiently by providing a contingency funding source. To learn more about current interest rates, relevant guidance and eligibility, visit the Discount Window site and choose the “Select Your District” tab to find your district contact information.
Leverage FedTransaction Analyzer® to access both FAIM and ISO 20022 message data post migration
The FedTransaction Analyzer tool provides volume- and value-based analysis of your Fedwire Funds Service transaction data for up to seven years, regardless of whether a transaction was sent in the legacy FAIM or ISO 20022 format. This tool is complimentary for FedLine Advantage Solution users and includes a variety of reports and data overviews to help your financial institution:
- Assess potential exception activity
- Automate manual reporting processes
- Locate and track an individual payment order with Output Message Accountability Data (OMAD)
Ask your End User Authorization Contact (EUAC) to activate the FedTransaction Analyzer role for you today!
Review these important reminders for FedLine Advantage users
All customers that use the FedLine Advantage Solution in any capacity to send and receive messages should review the following steps to prepare for the upcoming July 14 migration:
- Learn new ISO 20022 screens: The ISO 20022 message screens and required content are significantly different, so it is imperative that your wire operations team familiarizes themselves with the new screens and features. Review our training materials available via the “Help” link within the FedPayments Manager – Funds application.
- Complete attestation ASAP: The deadline to complete your attestation has passed. Please have one of your Funds Supervisor or Funds Manager Subscribers click on the “Complete Attestation” button in the DIT2 test environment to attest you have (i) trained your staff to use the new ISO 20022 screens and (ii) successfully sent ISO 20022 test messages that are representative of the outgoing messages you send today.
- Review the migration weekend implementation playbook: This document, available via the “Help” link shown above, provides FedLine Advantage customers with a schedule of key activities for planning purposes during the ISO 20022 migration weekend (i.e., Friday, July 11 through Monday, July 14) and through Wednesday, July 16.
- Prepare your entire wire ecosystem: Inventory the systems that support your wire operations (i.e., upstream and downstream systems), reach out to your internal software developers or vendors, and take action to ensure readiness for the ISO 20022 migration.
It's never too late to test
Customers can continue testing until migration weekend! All customers should test on Tuesdays and Thursdays to mimic sending production-like traffic in ISO 20022 message formats in the DIT2 environment. As you conduct DIT2 testing, ensure that incoming test messages are processed normally by your ancillary systems (e.g., funds are credited to the appropriate party and can be prcessed by your compliance systems). No forms are required, and there is no need to coordinate with other institutions.
If you want to coordinate testing with another financial institution, please sign up to join the DIT2 peer testing community, which has over 600 testing participants. Once you are signed up, you will receive a weekly email containing the names of all testing participants so that you can connect directly with other institutions on the list to coordinate peer testing (e.g., when to test, what to test).
Need help?
We are here to help you! Please contact us, your relationship manager or Wholesale Testing Services with any questions you have about this newsletter or the ISO 20022 migration.
Be sure to bookmark the Fedwire Funds Service ISO 20022 Implementation Center so you have access to the latest information about ISO 20022.