ISO 20022 is a standard that covers financial information transfer between financial institutions, including payment transactions, securities trading and settlement information, credit and debit card transactions, and more. The standard was developed in 2013 by ISO Technical Committee 68 (TC68), and since then, it has been widely adopted by European Union countries, Switzerland, Britain, India, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Singapore.
ISO 20022 and SWIFT
SWIFT, the world’s leading messaging network for international payments, is among the organizations using ISO 20022. Thanks to ISO 20022, a vast amount of financial services metadata stored in UML models with a specific ISO 20022 UML profile has been shared and standardized.
ISO 20022 Adoption by Economies
ISO 20022 has been widely adopted by economies worldwide, with the exception of China, Russia, South Korea, and Brazil. The US Fed began adopting the standard in 2020, with the migration process expected to conclude this year.
ISO 20022 Blockchains
Older blockchains like Bitcoin are not compatible with ISO 20022, nor are blockchains developed in Asia. Ethereum, although born when the ISO 20022 Standard was spreading, is not compatible, since it had not been widely adopted in the US at that time.
Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) are among the few compatible blockchains. Ripple was born in 2012, before the ISO 20022 standard release, and is a fundamentally US project. However, it has integrated ISO 20022 compatibility over time to interact with financial institutions. Stellar, which grew out of a rib of Ripple when Jed McCaleb resigned as CTO of Ripple in 2013 to found Stellar in 2014, is a decentralized protocol.
Other Compatible Blockchains
Other blockchains compatible with ISO 20022 include Algorand (ALGO), Hedera (HBAR), Quant (QNT), IOTA (MIOTA), and XDC Network (XDC). However, except for Ripple, none of the other blockchains compatible with ISO 20022 has achieved much success. Ripple remains one of the top ten crypto projects in the world by market capitalization.
Conclusion
The adoption of ISO 20022 has become widespread across economies worldwide, facilitating financial information exchange between financial institutions. Ripple is among the few compatible blockchains, benefiting from the standard’s compatibility to remain a top crypto project. However, none of the other compatible blockchains have achieved much success, leaving Ripple to continue its effective relationship with traditional financial institutions.
