ISO FAQs

What is ISO 20022?

ISO, the International Organization for Standardisation, is a global body that develops consensus-based international standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges. It is the next generation standard that focuses on electronic data interchange between financial institutions. It has grown each year and covers the entire financial industry, enabling everything from foreign exchange trading to credit card payments.

Why is ISO 20022 important?

ISO 20022 is used by payment systems in over 70 countries and will be the benchmark standard for high-value and instant payment systems of all major currencies. It enables complete and unambiguous data exchange between financial institutions. This will improve the quality of data across the payments ecosystem and reduce industry costs and risk. Richer and better use of data will open new opportunities, as unstructured data that is repeatedly translated and truncated across multiple data formats can lead to ambiguous payments.

Depending on the payment types and payment data services you use, it means there will be a need to make changes to the way you send, receive and process domestic and international payments which in turn will bring future benefits.

What are the benefits of making these changes as a customer?

The main benefit of adopting the changes of ISO 20022 is the way that it enhances the payment experience for our customers. This can be identified clearly as it reduces the multiple payment schemes and in-house banking formats that are used today to a single industry-wide standard. This will enable our customers to manage and utilise our payment facilities with ease.

ISO 20022 also has several other benefits, these include:

Standard delivery of structured address details to enable straight-through processing.
The structured address fields will also have an increased character length that will enable our customers to send and receive payments efficiently.
The same version of the ISO 20022 standard will be utilised for all mass-volume SEPA payments, high-value euro payments and international payments.

What is the transition period for making these changes?

The transition period for ISO 20022 will end in November 2025.

What payment types are impacted by this change?

For AIB customers, ISO 20022 will bring updates to all SEPA and international payments. These will include SEPA Credit Transfer, SEPA Direct Debit and Multi-Currency Bulk payment files as well as individual payments.

What are the main changes for ISO 20022?

SEPA Credit Transfer Bulk Payment File

Main changes in the new AIB SCT Bulk File Specification; available from November 2023 “pain.001.001.09”
Field Name	Required Change
Encoding	PAIN Name changes to “pain.001.001.09” Each file must start with: "<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?><Document xmlns=”urn:iso:std:iso:20022:tech:xsd:pain.001.001.09” xmlns:xsi=”http://www. w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”>"
Requested Execution Date	Inclusion of new “Dt” tag within the XPath.
Debtor Agent BIC	''BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath.
Creditor Agent BIC	“BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath.
Creditor Postal Address	There will be a new structured address format. This will consist of 4 fields. These include: Creditor Postal Address Street Name Creditor Postal Address Post Code Creditor Postal Address Town Name Creditor Postal Address Country This will be the only address format available post November 2025. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
Remittance Data (Unstructured)	A new business rule applies if you choose to populate this field. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
	New SEPA Usage Rule(s): Either “AnyBIC”, “LEI” or one occurrence of “Other” is allowed.
Debtor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Debtor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Ultimate Debtor Organisation BIC	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Ultimate Debtor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Creditor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Creditor Organisation LEI	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.

SEPA Direct Debit Bulk Payment File

Main changes in the new AIB SDD Bulk File Specification; available from November 2023 “pain.008.001.08”
Field Name	Required Change
Encoding	PAIN Name changes to “pain.008.001.08” Each file must start with: "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Document xmlns=”urn:iso:std:iso:20022:tech:xsd:pain.008.001.08” xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/ XMLSchema-instance”>"
Creditor Agent BIC	“BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath
	New SEPA Usage Rule(s): Either “AnyBIC”, “LEI” or one occurrence of “Other” is allowed.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Mandate Original Debtor Agent	“BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation BIC	''BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Debtor Agent BIC	“BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath.
Debtor Postal Address	There will be a new structured address format. This will consist of 4 fields. These include: Debtor Postal Address Street Name Debtor Postal Address Post Code Debtor Postal Address Town Name Debtor Postal Address Country This will be the only address format available post November 2025. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
Debtor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Debtor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Ultimate Debtor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Debtor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Remittance Data (Unstructured)	A new business rule applies if you choose to populate this field. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.

Multi-Currency Bulk Payment File

Main changes in the new AIB MCY Bulk File Specification; available from November 2023 “pain.001.001.09”
Field Name	Required Change
Encoding	PAIN Name changes to “pain.001.001.09” Each file must start with: "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <Document xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance” xmlns=”urn:iso:std:iso:20022:tech:xsd:pain.001.001.09”>"
Requested Execution Date	Inclusion of new “Dt” tag within the XPath.
Debtor Agent BIC	“BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath.
Creditor Agent BIC	“BIC” changes to “BICFI” within the Xpath.
Multi-Currency Creditor Agent Clearing Code	*Only applicable for Non-SCT payments Character length reduced from 35 to 28
Creditor Postal Address	There will be a new structured address format. This will consist of 4 fields. These include: Creditor Postal Address Street Name Creditor Postal Address Post Code Creditor Postal Address Town Name Creditor Postal Address Country This will be the only address format available post November 2025. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
Multi-Currency Creditor Bank Account	*Only applicable for Non-SCT payments Character length reduced from 35 to 34
Purpose Code	Either the Purpose Code or Purpose Proprietary is mandatory for non SCT payments (excluding payments from 238590 account) and one of these tags must be included in your file. This is an optional field for SCT payments. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
Purpose Proprietary	Either the Purpose Proprietary or Purpose Code is mandatory for non SCT payments (excluding payments from 238590 account) and one of these tags must be included in your file. This is an optional field for SCT payments. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
Remittance Data (Unstructured)	This field is only mandatory for payments made from a 238590 account and must contain a purpose of payment e.g. wages A new business rule applies if you choose to populate this field. This is an optional field for SCT payments. *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.
	New SEPA Usage Rule(s): Either “AnyBIC”, “LEI” or one occurrence of “Other” is allowed.
Debtor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Debtor Organisation LEI	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath
Ultimate Debtor Organisation BIC	''BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath
Ultimate Debtor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Creditor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Creditor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation BIC	“BICOrBEI” changes to “AnyBIC” within the Xpath.
Ultimate Creditor Organisation LEI	This is a new field that you can choose to populate if required.
Unpaid Error Codes	Addition of new unpaid error codes *Please review the relevant bulk file specification for more information.

What will happen if I don’t make these changes for November 2025?

If you don’t make the mandatory changes before the transition period ends in November 2025, you can expect that any SCT, SDD and MCY bulk payment files that you upload after this date will fail.

Can I use the transition period until it ends in November 2025?

Customers can continue to upload files in the current format or alternatively make the necessary changes to the new format. This is a phased approach. Both formats will be supported and available on the AIB website until November 2025.

It would be beneficial for business customers to plan accordingly as this will enable AIB to manage and support your concerns during this transition period.

Where can I access the File Specifications?

The File Specifications can be found on the bottom of this page https://aib.ie/business/help/iso-faqs.

When will AIB accept the new file formats?

AIB will accept the new file formats with these changes from 19 March 2024.

How will AIB support me with this change?

AIB will work with you to validate the changes from 20 November 2023. You can do this by sending a test file with the required changes to sepa.testfile@aib.ie. Once you receive confirmation that your file has been tested successfully you can continue to send the payment files in the new format through iBB from 19 March 2024 onwards.

How do I prepare for the change to my Payment Files?

Next Steps:

Identify the changes in the updated file formats that will impact your files.
Review your internal systems to ensure the new data elements will be captured correctly.
Engage with your payment systems IT providers for support.
If you use a third-party software provider to process your bulk payment files you will need to tell them about these changes and ensure they update their systems.
Send a test file to sepa.testfile@aib.ie with the updated changes.
If you have any more questions, we’re ready to help just call us on 0818 720000 (+353 1641 4889 from outside Republic of Ireland).

ISO 20022 FAQs

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