On the 23 February 2018, SWIFT issued its latest standards release which includes a number of significant changes to SWIFT messages used in payments, trade finance and securities.

An important change is that SWIFT 2018 mandates that payment messages must now implement the Unique End-to-end Transaction Reference (UETR) regardless of whether they are members of SWIFT gpi, or not.

There have also been further major updates to other message categories, the most significant of which will affect every user of the MT7nn category messages with major changes to existing messages and the introduction of 3 new messages relating to Documentary Credits.

Additional updates have also been made to the Treasury and Securities categories to support MiFID II related rules on transparency of fees. Furthermore, use of SWIFTRef BIC Plus is now mandatory, as support for the old BIC Directory has been dropped.

Volante’s technology has been enabling clients to adopt every major SWIFT migration over the past fifteen years by leveraging in-built tools that help insulate core systems from the complexity of ever-changing standards.