On April 1, the National Bank of Ukraine completed a historical project. Ukrainian systems of electronic payments switched to the international SEP according to ISO 20022.
"Today, one of the largest migrations ever carried out by financial institutions of Ukraine took place. Such changes happen once in a generation. I am sure that this will be a powerful impetus for the future development and modernisation of the information systems of Ukrainian banks and financial institutions," deputy chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine Oleksii Shaban.
Since Ukraine received the status of a candidate for membership in the European Union, the transition to a unified ISO is an essential prerequisite for the further integration of the Ukrainian economic infrastructure into SEPA. SEP-4.1 testing will begin in 2023, and Ukraine will already be ready for them.
What do Ukrainian users get with the transition to ISO 20022. First, from now on, the concept of "banking day" has been abolished in Ukraine. Previously, payments were made from Monday to Friday from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m., and Saturday-Sunday were weekends. From now on, users will be able to conduct banking procedures 24/7.
"Thanks to the ISO 20022 standard, it became possible to unify payment messages, create uniform rules for their filling and processing, expand the requisite composition with additional fields and structured information," NBU.
All this will be a useful start for further automation and facilitation of payment operations and, accordingly, faster integration of Ukrainian business into European and vice versa.
