SWIFT transitions to the digital age: all international payments will operate under a single standard – Ministry of Finance
Kyiv • UNN
SWIFT is fully transitioning to the digital standard ISO 20022 CBPR+, which will synchronize the banking systems of 11,000 financial institutions. This update will enable international transfers in a single digital format, compatible with blockchains and CBDCs.
On November 22, 2025, the global payment system SWIFT will fully transition to the new digital standard ISO 20022 CBPR+, which replaces the old SWIFT MT banking message format. This will be one of the largest updates in the modern history of financial infrastructure. This was reported by the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, writes UNN.
Details
As reported by Oleksandr Honcharov, director of the Institute for Economic Development of Ukraine, the update will synchronize the banking systems of more than 11,000 financial institutions from 200 countries around the world. From now on, all international transfers will be carried out in a single digital format, which is fully compatible with blockchains and central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
Thus, after November 22, 2025, a new era begins, when every movement of capital becomes digitally traceable, and liquidity becomes programmable. And from January of the next year, 2026, active integration of CBDC and tokenized assets will begin - the actual transition to a new monetary system
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The transition process is taking place in stages:
- November 17, 2025 – official inclusion of the ISO 20022 standard;
- November 17–24 – global synchronization window between Europe, Asia, and the USA;
- November 22 – full transition to the new system.
The new format has already been integrated with a number of blockchain platforms: Ripple (XRP) – interbank settlements and CBDC payments; Stellar (XLM) – cross-border transfers; Algorand (ALGO) – asset tokenization; Hedera (HBAR) – state registries; Quant (QNT) – bridge between banks and blockchains.
Yes, friends, this is the end of paper settlements and the beginning of digital control, where blockchain becomes part of the official banking infrastructure. Let's see how this global upgrade of the financial code will start working in Ukraine