MUFG Bank and Crédit Agricole Complete First ISO 20022-Aligned Payment on CHIPS

The first payment in the ISO 20022 message format on the CHIPS network was completed by Japanese financial institution MUFG Bank and European financial institution Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, The Clearing House said in a Wednesday (April 17) press release.

“We congratulate Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank and MUFG for completing the first payment in the ISO 20022 message format on CHIPS, the first high-value payment system in the United States to adopt an ISO 20022 message format,” Richard Dzina, senior vice president of product development at The Clearing House, said in the release.

“We would also like to thank all the participants on the CHIPS network for working to make the ISO 20022 message format migration a resounding success,” Dzina added.

The Clearing House’s CHIPS network completed its first day of operations using the ISO 20022 message format on April 8. On that day, the network released 555,345 payments for a total value of $1.81 trillion.

“These figures exceeded expectations for volume and value on Day 1 and parallel a typical operating day on the CHIPS network,” Margaret Weichert, chief product offers at The Clearing House, said April 10.

The Clearing House’s CHIPS network is a private-sector high-value clearing and settlement system that settles an average of $1.8 trillion in payments every business day, according to the release. Ninety-five percent of CHIPS payments are the U.S. dollar (USD) leg of a funds transfer that begins or ends in another country.

ISO 20022 is the international standard for financial messaging developed by the International Organization for Standardization(ISO) to create a common global language for financial communications, the release said.

The network’s implementation of ISO 20022 messages enhances the efficiency of cross-border payment processing, allows participants and end-user customers to gain value from enriched data content, and makes CHIPS messages align with message formats used by other global high-value systems, per the release.

Migration to the ISO 20022 standard is table stakes for financial institutions and payment processors alike, especially since its implementation is less than a year away, PYMNTS reported Tuesday (April 16).

That migration is also being driven by businesses’ demands that financial institutions upgrade their B2B infrastructure to offer greater speed, security and efficiency.