SWIFT gpi tracker — Mandatory changes for FIN participants from November 2020
(This article is also available in German and French)
In November 2017, SWIFT launched the new Global Payment Innovation (gpi) service to improve and accelerate international payments and has been gradually expanding it since then. GPI is intended to create more transparency in fees and in the transmission of all payment information. The unique payment reference UETR (unique end-to-end transaction reference) was introduced to achieve better traceability of payments as part of an automated end-to-end tracking. Since November 2019, the UETR has also been mandatory for all banks that have not previously participated in the GPI.
SWIFT gpi tracker: Mandatory changes from November 2020
From November 2020, confirmations for payments in MT103 format (Single Customer Credit Transfer) are mandatory for the SWIFT gpi tracker. This change affects all FIN participants!
A bank that wants to receive MT103 payments consequently must confirm them with a message in MT199 format (Free Format Message) to the SWIFT gpi tracker when the money was accounted to the customer.
SWIFT gpi tracker: For users of the payment engine CPG.classic from CPG Finance Systems GmbH this mandatory change means:
CPG is a payments solution provider for national and international payments of banks, municipalities and companies and provides the payment engine CPG.classic.
The mandatory changes of the SWIFT gpi tracker can be easily realized with CPG.classic as follows:
CPG.classic can be used as a gateway where it automatically process, verifies and routes payment messages to surrounding core banking systems according to individual configurations:
- An incoming MT103 payment message is automatically confirmed with an MT199 confirmation message that was generated by the core banking system and was forwarded to CPG.classic.
- When an MT103 payment message gets sent and confirmed with an MT910, this MT910 can be passed on to core booking system by CPG.classic.
CPG.classic can also be used to process or generate payment messages, i.e. an MT199 message can be generated (manually by the user or automatically) or an MT910 message can be received automatically.
- An incoming MT103 payment message is (automatically or manually by the user) confirmed with an MT199 that gets generated within CPG.classic. The MT103 is passed on to the core banking system.
- When an MT103 payment message gets sent and confirmed with an MT910, this MT910 can also be handled as desired by CPG.classic.
More additional mandatory changes will come as part of the TARGET2 / T2S consolidation project to payment systems:
The consolidation project for TARGET2 as a big bang migration project — i.e. a switch from old to new infrastructure without a transition phase — is scheduled for November 2021:
- Technical consolidation of TARGET2 and TARGET2-Securities
- Consolidation and harmonization of connectivity
- Functional convergence
- New RTGS-Services
Among other things, this consolidation relies on the consistent use of ISO20022 standard-compliant messages. These XML-based MX messages replace the MT formats. This also applies to the MT199 and MT910 tracker formats, which are replaced by the trck MX formats.
SWIFT has announced that it will postpone the migration to the ISO20022 standard by one year until November 2022, but will stick to the original end of the migration phase by November 2025.
Contact
Do you have questions? We’re here to help:
+49 (0) 89 6809700
infocpg@cpg.de
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my colleagues Pepe, Andreas Wegmann, Stephan, Dirk Schönrock & Tobias Schaub for the numerous joint discussions on the topic of SWIFT gpi tracker and in particular Pepe for creating the nice flowcharts!
