Payments in the new standard

In response to the regulations of the European Central Bank and national supervisory authorities, one of the largest financial institutions in Europe has begun a comprehensive adaptation of its payment systems to the ISO 20022 format.

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The new standard significantly expands the range of information transmitted within a single payment message - instead of a single text field, it is required to accurately separate the data into name, surname, address, institution, account number and other details, even as niche as the floor of a building.

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The project is in progress — its completion is scheduled for September 2025. Team Connect supports the customer from the technical side — mainly in the area of frontend and database integration.

The migration required not only a redesign of the backend logic, but also changes to the user interface — to present the data according to the new structure and keep the whole process consistent.

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The team (including the Team Connect specialist) carries out two-track work:

• backend: modification of existing tables and creation of new data structures (e.g. for “agents” and account numbers)
• frontend: update the user's application so that it reads and displays data from the appropriate fields — without distorting UX.

One of the main challenges was the cascading construction of ISO messages, in which data is grouped at multiple levels and contains hundreds of fields — not all of which need to be presented, but all of which should be retained to ensure compliance and the possibility of further transfer of data to other banks.

In the process of analyzing the data, a specific case of optimization emerged. One team estimated that the data needed to write one type of message would take 1024 characters. This length — multiplied by the scale of the operation — generated real storage and processing costs.
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The Team Connect specialist recalculated this value, taking into account the real length of the data in the messages and how they were formatted. It turned out that 512 characters is enough - exactly half as much.

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Thanks to this adjustment, the bank avoided excessive expansion of the table and reduced requirements related to server resources. This translated into real savings across the institution — both in terms of infrastructure and processing time.

Although the project is still ongoing, its strategic importance for the client can already be seen:

• the system is prepared to receive and process extensive payment messages,

• the frontend of the user application is consistent with the new data structure,
• the team developed a flexible approach to building and using new tables,
• specific improvements have been implemented that reduce the system load.

• Standert: ISO 20022 (new payment format)
• Range: receiving, processing and retransmitting payment messages
• Areas: data structuring, database integration, frontend customization
• Data types: address data, accounts (IBAN and local), institution and account identifiers
• Challenges: number of fields, deep message structure, legal responsibility for data integrity