ISO 20022: Who is affected and what needs to be done?
The process to harmonise Swiss payments will affect everyone on the Swiss financial market, with banks and businesses set to have most to do in light of the changes. Private individuals will not notice much of an impact initially.
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Companies
Essentially, the changes being made to payments will affect all companies that transfer money and, specifically, the following business processes:
- Processes relating to accounts receivable and invoicing (including direct debits)
- Processes relating to accounts payable and paying invoices
- Processes relating to HR and salary/pension payments
- Account reconciliation and statements; liquidity and cash management
In other words, companies need to take direct action.
It all depends on what software your company uses!
Key to the switchover to the ISO 20022 standard is the type of software a company uses for its payments.
Do you use standardised software solutions?
Standardised solutions of this kind are developed for accounting, billing, payments and similar tasks. If you use standard software, then we recommend that you do the following as soon as possible:
Recommendation:
- Contact your software partner.
- Upgrade your software.
- Undertake the necessary configurations (e.g. bank account, account number, master data).
Do you use individual software solutions?
If you use your own software solutions, you must make them ISO 20022-compatible.
Recommendation:
- Contact your IT department and/or your software partner.
- Launch a project to carry out the implementation in a structured manner.
- Conduct an impact analysis and define your requirements.
- Plan implementation and testing.
- Your software partner will then ensure that your own software solutions meet the ISO requirements.
Further recommendations:
- Replace your reader for BESR payments with a scanner for QR-bills that supports QR codes
- Switch your master data to IBAN. Don’t forget your standing orders.
IBAN calculator: Individual IBAN calculations of conventional bank accont numbers from Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Private individuals
It will only be possible to use the 21-digit IBAN (e.g. CH12 3456 7890 1234 5678 9) for any kind of payment in future, with only the new QR-bill or eBill available instead of the old payment slips. Aside from these changes, private individuals will not really notice much of the harmonisation process. On the whole, the new Swiss payments system is designed to make it even easier for people in the country to pay by eBill, direct debit or credit transfer.
This means that individuals will not need to do anything as the new features will primarily be informative in nature.
Recommendation:
- Switch your master data to IBAN. Don’t forget your standing orders
