Change Management Framework for the CHAPS and RTGS ISO 20022 implementation

1: Introduction

1.1: Background

On 19 June 2023, CHAPS payments migrated to the ISO 20022 messaging standard. ISO 20022 is an open international standard, which allows each jurisdiction to implement the best fit for their domestic payments ecosystem. When local implementations are harmonised, however, ISO 20022 has the potential to create a single common language for payments globally. We have adopted ISO 20022 for CHAPS and RTGS within the same “co-existence” period as many major jurisdictions, including Swift whose co-existence with the old MT message standard is due to be retired for payments in November 2025.

We are responsible for keeping our implementation of ISO 20022 for RTGS and CHAPS up to date. One of our top priorities is to maintain close harmonisation and interoperability with other ISO 20022 implementations.

This framework sets out the process for maintaining our ISO 20022 implementation for CHAPS and RTGS – as detailed in the message schemas and technical guidance. It provides full details of all the steps followed, including the change request process, the outputs produced and the involvement of the wider UK payments community.

The intended audience are organisations who are directly involved in sending, receiving or processing CHAPS or RTGS messages in ISO 20022 (MX) format.

ISO 20022 messages for CHAPS and RTGS are developed and maintained in accordance with the ISO 20022 methodology. The development and annual maintenance process for ISO 20022 base messages is ultimately governed by the ISO 20022 Registration Authority.

High Value Payments Systems Plus (HVPS+), managed by a community of market infrastructures including the Bank, and Cross Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+), a standard managed by Swift, develop Usage Guidelines for use by the wider global payment industry with the CBPR+ Usage Guidelines ultimately supporting the Swift CBPR+ implementation. These Usage Guidelines provide a set of rules which layer upon the base ISO 20022 message standards. The ISO 20022 message schema we have developed for RTGS and CHAPS layers upon the HVPS+ and CBPR+ Usage Guidelines in order to closely align and remain as interoperable as possible.

As such, our approach, including on timelines (Section 3), is aligned with other change cycles (Annex C). Further information is available from:

• ISO 20022
• HVPS+ maintenance cycle
• Swift’s CBPR+ standards releases

1.2: Guiding Principles

We will assess all changes to the CHAPS and RTGS ISO 20022 implementation before approval and allocation to one of the annual releases. Our assessment will consider:

• Harmonisation and interoperability – to ensure that the CHAPS and RTGS ISO implementation remains interoperable with HVPS+ and CBPR+ usage guidelines.
• Market needs – Meet the needs of industry such as optimising efficiency within the payments processing chain, including through supporting a high level of straight-through-processing.
• Net benefit – changes should deliver a clear net benefit to users.
• Impact – input will be sought from the community of CHAPS and RTGS participants to understand the cost/impact of proposed changes.
• Feasibility – proposed changes must be feasible to implement, including within the proposed timelines.

Some larger or more complex changes may require a longer lead-time for the industry to implement and therefore may not be implemented in the next available release. For any expansion to the Bank’s policy on mandating enhanced data, we will provide at least 18 months’ notice.

2: Change Requests

Each change proposed will go through a process of submission, assessment, and prioritisation. This will include changes identified by the Bank such as to reflect policy changes or to correct errors.

2.1: Who can submit a change request

We expect the majority of organisations that submit a change request would be:

• CHAPS Direct Participants
• Other RTGS account holders and payment system operators
• CHAPS indirect participants and large corporates
• Vendors / service providers

2.2: Types of requests

The ISO 20022 change request form for RTGS and CHAPS should be used for changes to:

• ISO 20022 schemas and technical guidance for CHAPS and RTGS messages. All ISO 20022 messages used in CHAPS and RTGS are detailed in Annex D.
• Any other artefacts produced by the Bank to support ISO 20022 implementation in CHAPS and RTGS. For example, this could include the UK Recommended Purpose Code list or the approach we are taking on ISO 20022 implementation to support future RTGS functionality such as synchronisation.

Change requests submitted to us that seek changes either directly or indirectly to HVPS+ Usage Guidelines should clearly indicate this. Requests for changes to an ISO 20022 base message or any CBPR+ Usage Guidelines, should be directed to those organisations respectively.

The ISO 20022 change request form should not be used for other RTGS/CHAPS documentation such as the CHAPS Reference Manual, or third-party documentation such as ISO market guidance, or various routing directories.

• RTGS users should submit completed change request forms through RCEP under ‘Documentation -> Proposing a change to the ISO Schema’.
• Other organisations may submit completed change request forms to ISOschema@bankofengland.co.uk.

Change request form

3. Timelines

This section outlines the high-level timescales we will follow for each change cycle. In Q1 each year, ahead of the process commencing, we will publish precise dates for the upcoming process. A timeline comparing the timelines for CHAPS and RTGS to HVPS+ and Swift’s CBPR+ Standard Release can be found in Annex C.

Change cycles overlap, with a specific change cycle starting with when change requests must be submitted (20XX), with implementation the following year (20XX + 1). For example, changes submitted and approved in 2024 will ordinarily be implemented in November 2025.

Usage Guidelines are named according to the year of implementation, the example above would be UG2025.

4: Change Management Process

4.1: Collection of Change Requests

Change requests must be submitted by 1 April. We encourage you to let us know as early as possible that you are considering submitting a change request. Where possible, you should submit your request well ahead of the deadline to ensure sufficient time for any analysis and discussion. This is especially important where we may need to validate the level of support from sponsors.

Organisations must fully complete the form to enable us to assess the change request and the impact on the community. We may ask for missing or additional information.

Individual users of HVPS+ may not submit change requests directly to HVPS+, but they may submit them via the Bank where it relates to CHAPS.

4.1.1: Publication of submitted Change Request list

We will publish summary information on change requests that have been submitted.

Participants may provide input to us on any of the change requests. We may also proactively seek input. The window for input is expected to be between two to four weeks.

4.2: Assessing requests and submitting to HVPS+

We will assess all change requests received and consider which to approve and which to reject. The Bank may seek input from other organisations such as CHAPS Direct Participants, Swift and Pay.UK as part of its assessment.

Grounds for rejection may include those that are: not technically possible; and overlap or conflict with another proposed changes.

Some changes may be carried forward to a future change cycle. This is likely for requests where the industry needs a longer timeframe for implementation, or to manage how many changes can be made in the same change cycle.

4.2.1: Publication of approved Change Request list

We will update the list of change requests with a status for each – approved, approved and will be submitted to HVPS+, and rejected.

4.3: Cross-group alignment and final assessment

Cross-group alignment between HVPS+ and CBPR+ is a significant part of their change management processes, to ensure harmonisation of their respective Usage Guidelines. Cross-group alignment takes many forms, from exchange of change requests received, sharing of views on proposals, to outlining the impact of the accepted changes requests on the others’ Usage Guidelines.

The Bank, as a member of HVPS+, will engage and monitor these engagements and subsequent approval of change requests. We expect this will provide us with an early sight of impacts to the CHAPS and RTGS ISO 20022 implementation and our own approved change requests within the same change process.

4.4: Bank update to participants on forthcoming changes

In December 20XX, we will have reviewed the change requests approved by HVPS+ and CBPR+, following publication of the updated Maintenance Proposal Document by HVPS+ and updated high level information document by CBPR+ (both in late November 20XX).

We will provide participants with any insights we have of the impacts these changes will have on the CHAPS and RTGS ISO 20022 implementation, and any anticipated changes we expect to make taking account of the impacts.

4.5: Draft schemas and technical guidance

Following approval of all Bank, HVPS+ and CBPR+ change requests, we can make the changes to our CHAPS and RTGS schemas and technical guidance. Once the draft HVPS+ and CBPR+ Usage Guidelines have been published, we will make a comparison to ensure alignment. This might cause some minor changes to be made prior to publication of draft schemas and technical guidance.

4.5.1: Industry awareness of changes and draft schemas

We expect to host a session for stakeholders to summarise the upcoming changes as contained within the draft schemas and technical guidance.

4.6: Bank publishes final schemas and technical guidance

Publication of final schemas and technical guidance will be in two steps to support participants and vendors commence their analysis, impact assessments and development work as early as possible.

4.6.1: Update proposed final CHAPS & RTGS schemas and technical guidance

At this stage, we will update the draft schemas published in MyStandards to final, once we have reflected any changes made to the final HVPS+ and/or CBPR+ Usage Guidelines.

4.6.2: Confirm final CHAPS and RTGS schemas and technical guidance

Swift undertake a ‘Quality Check’ of the CHAPS and RTGS final schemas and technical guidance. This provides additional confidence that no errors or late fixes might be required. Following this stage, the likelihood of changes is very low, however still possible.

4.7: Testing and readiness

While MyStandards provides a basic level of testing available for users, it is not until schemas and technical guidance are provisioned onto the necessary Swift services (including MVal – Swift’s Message Validation service) that we can open environments and full end-to-end testing becomes possible.

We expect to provide a testing window for participants each year ahead of implementation of changes into live.

4.8: Release weekend

Information for the release weekend, including any mandatory testing requirements, will be shared in advance.

5: Harmonisation and Interoperability

5.1: HVPS+ Charter

The HVPS+ group (a membership community of High Value Payment System operators) works to drive consistent market practices and correct use of standards among its membership. HVPS+ have established:

• A Harmonisation Charter, aiming to foster support from market infrastructures for an agreed set of objectives and principles designed to enable evolution and interoperability. Importantly, this includes at a high-level maintaining Usage Guidelines aligned to one of the two most recent implementations of HVPS+.
• A similar Change Management process, which mirrors Swift’s CBPR+/PSWG Standards Release process, providing several cross-alignment points between the two groups. It sets out how change can be submitted from member HVPS+ operators, and updates made to HVPS+ Usage Guidelines, with market infrastructures recommended to implement changes each November.

More information is published by HVPS+.

5.2: ISO base messages, HVPS+, CBPR+ and domestic payment schemes

We will consider the scale of changes HVPS+ and CBPR+ propose each year and prioritise and progress with changes proportionately to ensure the volume of change remains within capacities of the CHAPS/RTGS participants.

5.3: Interaction with other ISO 20022 implementations

Other domestic and international market infrastructures, central banks and/or RTGS operators may also choose to align changes to the same timelines. While there are significant alignment benefits of multiple jurisdictions going live over the same weekend and using the same versions, there are also concentration risks and burden of workloads put on participants. Throughout the process, we will monitor and assess the wider landscape and seek views of participants to ensure changes are achievable within timelines.

Annexes

• Annex A - Glossary

  Term	Definition
  Base message	An ISO 20022 message on which usage guidelines can be built.
  BIS	The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) fosters dialogue, collaboration and knowledge-sharing among central banks and other authorities that are responsible for promoting financial stability.
  CBPR+	Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) is a working group of payments experts whose mission is to create global ISO 20022 Market Practice and Implementation Guidelines to ensure a common roll-out and implementation of ISO 20022 by banks. CBPR+ Usage Guidelines define how ISO 20022 messages are to be used and validated for cross border payments and cash reporting on the Swift network. CBPR+ is the specification used in the FINplus Closed User Group (CUG) administered by Swift. Country representation on CBPR+ is elected by the local Swift User Groups of the relevant countries. CBPR+ is supported by the Payment Standards Working Group (PSWG), a working group charged with the maintenance of the CBPR+ Usage Guidelines.
  CGI-MP	The Common Global Implementation Market Practice (CGI-MP) initiative aims to simplify various payment related corporate-to-bank implementations by promoting the wider acceptance of ISO 20022 XML. The initiative provides a forum for banks, bank associations, corporates, corporate associations, vendors, and market infrastructures. The CGI group works to achieve its goals through consultation, collaboration, and agreement on common implementation templates for various ISO 20022 financial messages.
  CMWG	HVPS+ Change Management Working Group: a sub-committee of HVPS+ to manage the maintenance of HVPS+ Usage Guidelines.
  Collection	A group of ISO 20022 Usage Guidelines for a particular market infrastructure.
  CPMI	The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) is an international standard setter that promotes, monitors and makes recommendations about the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing, settlement and related arrangements, thereby supporting financial stability and the wider economy. The CPMI also serves as a forum for central bank cooperation in related oversight, policy and operational matters, including the provision of central bank services.
  CR	Change request.
  HVPS+	High Value Payments Systems Plus (HVPS+). HVPS+ Community: Any Market Infrastructure (MI) that uses, or has an interest in using, the HVPS+ Usage Guidelines (UGs). All organisations are able to nominate ‘Readers’ to the HVPS+ Community distribution lists to keep updated with latest news, changes, and requests for feedback. HVPS+: Representative membership organisation for the HVPS+ Community Refer to the HVPS+ Terms of Reference for a detailed description of the HVPS+ structure and key functions.
  Implementation	The adoption of an ISO 20022 collection in a market infrastructure.
  IP+	Instant Payments Plus (IP+) is a workgroup, facilitated by Swift, of Market Infrastructures and global transaction banks, collaborating to develop global ISO 20022 market practice and implementation guidelines to enable participants to clear cross-border payments through their domestic instant payment system. The group took into account existing usage guidelines from HVPS+ and CBPR+ to ensure integration and interoperability.
  ISO	International Organization for Standardization – the authority that approves and registers new standards.
  MCR	Message Change Request report.
  MDR	Message Definition Report.
  MI	Financial Market Infrastructures (MIs), in this context, are systemically important payment systems, often operated by central banks, typically providing real time gross settlement services (RTGS) for high value payments, and usually responsible for the development, maintenance and publication of local ISO 20022 Usage Guidelines. In this context Swift, as administrator of the FINplus Closed User Group and CBPR+, is also considered an MI. It is the alignment of these Usage Guidelines (covered in the following sections of the Charter) with CBPR+ and HVPS+ that is key to achieving interoperability and harmonisation on versions.
  MyStandards	Swift MyStandards - holds the published versions of the CHAPS/RTGS schemas and technical guidance. Users will need a login and password.
  PMPG	The Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG) provides a global forum to drive better market practices which, together with correct use of standards, will help in achieving full straight-through processing and improved customer service. Its mission includes documentation and publication of recommended market practice and proposed best practice. It is comprised of country representatives from communities relevant in the global payments marketplace.
  PSWG	Payments Standards Working Group. The industry experts that assist Swift in undertaking standards maintenance activities.
  Registration Authority (RA)	The ISO 20022 Registration Authority is the guardian of the ISO 20022 financial repository. Its mission is to ensure compliance of developed repository items with the approved technical specifications and to publish the financial repository on the ISO 20022 webpage on behalf of ISO. The ISO 15022 Registration Authority maintains the dictionary of messages and fields and approves new or changed messages and fields. The RA services for ISO 20022 are provided by Swift.
  Standards Release (SR)	Term commonly used within the Swift community to refer to the live implementation of an annual message maintenance.
  STP	Straight-through-processing.
  Usage Guideline (UG)	A set of restrictions and/or rules placed upon an ISO 20022 base message for implementation within its specific business context, used by HVPS+ and Swift CBPR+.
  Usage Guideline Collection	A group (collection) of Usage Guidelines for implementation.
  Version	A two-digit number identifying the chronologic message version of an ISO 20022 base message (for example, pacs.008.001.XX).
  XML	Extensible Markup Language.

• Annex B - Versioning

  There are multiple layers when defining ISO 20022 messages and versions. Collections should be named according to the following convention.

  Type	Owner	Format	Definition
  Base Message	ISO 20022 RA	MRXXXX	MR = Maintenance Release XXXX = the year that the new base messages become effective.
  Usage Guidelines	CBPR+	SRXXXX	SR = Standards Release XXXX = the year that the Usage Guidelines are implemented in FINplus.
  Usage Guidelines	HVPS+	HVPS+ UGXXXX	UG = Usage Guideline XXXX = the year that the new Usage Guidelines become effective.
  Usage Guidelines	Individual market infrastructures (recommended)	MI UGXXXX	UG = Usage Guideline XXXX = the year that the Usage Guidelines are implemented by the market infrastructures.

  For example:

  • An HVPS+ collection which becomes effective in 2025 would be named: HVPS+ UG2025.
  • A CBPR+ collection published in 2024, but due to be implemented in 2025, would be named: SR2025. Note this example is to illustrate the impact of implementation date rather than the publication date on the naming convention. CBPR+ collections are normally expected to follow the schedule set out in this document.
  • For a market infrastructure that is published earlier, but implemented in 2023, HVPS+ recommends naming: MI UG2023.

• Annex C - Timelines

  The below timelines illustrate how our change management process for CHAPS and RTGS aligns to the HVPS+ and Swift’s CBPR+ change timelines. In Q1 each year, ahead of the process commencing, the Bank will publish precise dates for the upcoming process.

  Change cycles overlap, with a specific change cycle starting with when change requests must be submitted (20XX), with implementation the following year (20XX + 1). For example, changes submitted and approved in 2024 will ordinarily be implemented in November 2025.

  Usage Guidelines are named according to the year of implementation, the example above would be UG2025.

  Date	Bank process	HVPS+ process	CBPR+ process
  April/May 20XX	ISO 20022 base messages published
  1 April 20XX	Deadline to submit CHAPS and RTGS change requests to the Bank.
  April - May	A list of change requests submitted to the Bank will be published. Participants may provide feedback to the Bank on change requests submitted.
  1 June 20XX	CHAPS and RTGS change requests approved by the Bank will be submitted to HVPS+. The list of approved change requests (including those submitted to HVPS+) will be published.	Deadline for submission of HVPS+ change requests. Note: HVPS+ and CBPR+ groups will then compare and coordinate change requests, raising corresponding change requests with each other if necessary for alignment.	Deadline for submission of CBPR+ Change Requests.
  July 20XX		A Maintenance Proposal document (collation of HVPS+ change requests) will be published by the HVPS+.	CBPR+ assessment documentation published on Swift’s website.
  July 20XX	Bank will publish list of all intended changes (including those to align with HVPS+ change).
  August 20XX		HVPS+ and cross group meetings with CBPR+ to review, assess, discuss, and provide feedback on change requests, to align outcomes and find consensus.
  September – October 20XX		HVPS+ group meeting to approve change requests endorsed above.	CBPR+ Board ratification and country voting
  By third week in November 20XX		HVPS+ secretariat publish the updated Maintenance Proposal document (collation of approved HVPS+ change requests).	CBPR+ publish updated high level information document
  December 20XX	Bank reviews approved changes to HVPS+ and CBPR+ collections. Bank will update participants with anticipated changes to CHAPS and RTGS schemas and technical guidance.
  By third week in December 20XX		HVPS+ publish draft Usage Guidelines	CBPR+ publish draft Usage Guidelines
  By end-January 20XX+1	Bank will publish draft CHAPS and RTGS schemas and technical guidance on MyStandards.
  February 20XX+1	Bank will engage industry on upcoming changes within draft schemas and technical guidance.
  By third week in February 20XX+1		HVPS+ publish final collection of Usage Guidelines	CBPR+ publish final collection of Usage Guidelines
  By secondweek March 20XX+1	Bank will update proposed final CHAPS and RTGS schemas and technical guidance following review and comparison of final HVPS+ and CBPR+ Usage Guidelines (2-3 weeks)
  By firstweek April 20XX+1	Bank will confirm final CHAPS and RTGS schemas and technical guidance, following Swift Quality Control (2-3 weeks) Following Swift Quality Control, the Bank may create portals in MyStandards for participant testing
  April – June 20XX+1	Swift provisioning of schemas and technical guidance on MVal (central Message Validation service) and all relevant CHAPS and RTGS services and applications (additional 12 weeks).
  July - October 20XX+1	Participant testing window (the Bank will provide specific dates)
  By third week in November 20XX+1	Release weekend	HVPS+ recommended market infrastructure implementation	CBPR+ implementation

• Annex D – ISO 20022 messages used for CHAPS and RTGS

  Category	MT message	ISO 20022 equivalent	CHAPS Usage Guidelines (Enhanced)
  BAH	Business Application Header	head.001.001.02	CHAPS_head.001.001.02_(Business_Application_Header)
  Payments	MT 103 Customer Transfer	pacs.008.001.08	CHAPS_pacs.008.001.08_(Single_Customer_Credit_Transfer)_MT 103
  	MT 202 General Financial Institution Transfer	pacs.009.001.08	CHAPS_pacs.009.001.08_(General_Financial_Institution_Transfer_CORE)_MT 202
  	MT 202 COV General Financial Institution Transfer Cover	pacs.009.001.08	CHAPS_pacs.009.001.08_(General_Financial_Institution_Transfer_COV)_MT 202
  	MT 202 Return Transfer	pacs.004.001.09	CHAPS_pacs.004.001.09_(Return_Transfer)_MT 202
  Statements	MT 920 Statement Request Message	camt.060.001.05	CHAPS_camt.060.001.05_(Request)_MT 920
  	MT 950 Statement Message	camt.053.001.08	CHAPS_camt.053.001.08_(Statement)_MT 950
  Other	MT 298/003 Funds Queue Status Message	admi.004.001.02	CHAPS_admi.004.001.02_(Funds_Queue_Status_Message)_MT298-003
  	MT 298/004 RTGS Status Report	admi.004.001.02	CHAPS_admi.004.001.02_(RTGS_Status_Report)_MT 298-004
  Notifications	MT 298/010 Liquidity Report	camt.052.001.08	CHAPS_camt.052.001.08_(Liquidity_Report)_MT 298-010
  	MT 298/011 Confirmation of Liquidity Decrease	camt.054.001.08	CHAPS_camt.054.001.08_(Confirmation_of_Liquidity_Decrease)_MT 298-011
  	MT 298/012 Confirmation of Liquidity Increase	camt.054.001.08	CHAPS_camt.054.001.08_(Confirmation_of_Liquidity_Increase)_MT 298-012
  	MT 298/013 Liquidity Pre-Advice	camt.054.001.08	CHAPS_camt.054.001.08_(Liquidity_Pre_Advice)_MT 298-013
  	MT 298/014 Cancellation Advice	camt.054.001.08	CHAPS_camt.054.001.08_(Cancellation_Advice)_MT 298-014
  Retail net settlement messages	N/A	admi.004.001.02	DNS_admi.004.001.02_(Open_Close_Notification)
  	N/A	camt.011.001.07	DNS_camt.011.001.07_(Cap_Change_Request)
  	N/A	camt.025.001.05	DNS_camt.025.001.05_(Receipt)
  	Business Application Header	head.001.001.02	DNS_head.001.001.02_(Business_Application_Header)
  	MT 298/061 Multilateral Settlement Response	pacs.002.001.12	DNS_pacs.002.001.12_(Multilateral_Settlement_Response)_MT298-061
  	MT 298/060 Multilateral Settlement Request	pacs.029.001.01	DNS_pacs.029.001.01_(Multilateral_Settlement_Request)_MT298-060
  Notifications RTGS internal messages	MT 012 Sender Notification	pacs.002.XXX.XX	TBC
  	MT 019 Abort Notification	pacs.002.XXX.XX	TBC
  RTGS internal messages	MT 096 Settlement Request (RTGS system message)	pacs.004.001.09 pacs.008.001.08 pacs.009.001.08	CHAPS_pacs.004.001.09_(Return_Transfer)_MT 202 CHAPS_pacs.008.001.08_(Single_Customer_Credit_Transfer)_MT 103 CHAPS_pacs.009.001.08_(General_Financial_Institution_Transfer_CORE)_MT 202 CHAPS_pacs.009.001.08_(General_Financial_Institution_Transfer_COV)_MT 202
  	MT 097 Settlement Confirmation (RTGS system message)	xsys.001.XXX.XX (Defined by Swift)	TBC