Swift defers the ISO 20022 structured address deadline

Swift has pushed back the November 2026 requirement for structured postal addresses in ISO 20022 payment messages after banks in every region said they would not be ready. What changed All payment-related changes in Standards Release 2026 are deferred. The community agreed in 2023 to move from unstructured to structured addresses, with November 2026 as the cutover, but Swift found adoption uneven and several domestic market infrastructures asked for more time. Swift will consult banks, central banks, market infrastructures, market practice groups and corporates over the coming weeks and expects to confirm new timing by December 2026 at the latest. Securities and trade changes, including work supporting the T+1 shift, are decoupled and now target the first quarter of 2027, with an exact date due by mid-September 2026. Institutions already able to send structured addresses may continue to do so.