ISO 20022 Accelerating Beyond Legacy

Why is ISO 20022 becoming more urgent for asset servicing firms and what are they losing by delaying adoption?

In Partnership with

Legacy messaging is becoming harder to sustain as asset servicing firms face rising cost, manual inefficiency and growing pressure to modernise. This whitepaper examines why ISO 20022 matters now, how it improves operational maturity and what firms risk by delaying adoption.

ISO 20022 adoption gap

Technology

The industry remains heavily reliant on ISO 15022, and the gap between current adoption and what is needed for full efficiency remains significant.

At current adoption rates, the benefits of ISO 20022 standardisation will remain theoretical for most of the market.

Annual inefficiency cost

Cost

Manual processes and legacy messaging standards are the primary drivers — not market complexity or volume alone.

Standardisation through ISO 20022 could address a meaningful share of this cost without requiring firms to rebuild from scratch.

Standardisation reduces errors

Efficiency

Processing errors account for up to 10% of firms' total operational costs — making error reduction one of the clearest financial cases for standardisation.

The gains are available now — the barrier is adoption pace, not technology readiness.

Asset servicing firms are under increasing pressure to reduce risk, improve efficiency and move beyond legacy operating models. As volumes rise and manual processes continue to absorb cost and control, standardisation is becoming a more urgent strategic requirement.

Why is ISO 20022 becoming more important in asset servicing now? What are firms still losing by relying on fragmented processes and legacy messaging standards?

The paper examines the current state of ISO 20022 adoption, the operational and financial cost of inefficiency, and the case for treating standardisation as a foundation for long-term asset servicing transformation.

The research, produced in partnership with SmartStream Technologies, highlights:

Only 17% of event notifications are received in ISO 20022 format, showing how heavily the market still relies on ISO 15022

Asset servicing operations incur direct costs of up to US dollar (USD) 21 million per annum across operational expenditure and processing errors

Standardisation through ISO 20022 could reduce errors by as much as 87%, with processing errors accounting for up to 10% of firms' total operational costs

Keep reading — it's free

Verify your email to read this content