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Guide

Migrating from MT940 to camt.053: timeline and checklist

Payments between banks have moved to ISO 20022; statements are next. Here are the dates that are actually published, by the bodies that set them, and a checklist for moving your statement processing from MT940 to camt.053 without losing a day of reconciliation.

Dates as of October 2026, each with its source.

Where the deadlines stand

  1. 20 March 2023, ECB (Eurosystem): T2 replaced TARGET2 as the euro area’s high-value payment system, in one weekend, with ISO 20022 messages throughout. (Source: ECB press release, 21 March 2023)
  2. 17 March 2024, European Payments Council: The SEPA schemes moved to the 2019 version of the ISO 20022 messages between banks, postponed from the planned 19 November 2023 together with the rest of the 2023 rulebook changes. Customers could keep their existing files or adopt the 2019 versions, such as pain.001.001.09. (Source: EPC press release on the postponement, October 2023)
  3. 22 November 2025, SWIFT: The coexistence of MT and ISO 20022 for cross-border payment instructions between banks (CBPR+) ended: payments such as the MT103 moved to pacs.008. Statements and other reporting messages were not part of this cut-off. (Source: SWIFT ISO 20022 programme)
  4. November 2028 (planned), SWIFT: SWIFT’s CBPR+ roadmap plans the end of coexistence for statement and reporting messages, including the MT 940 and MT 950 that camt.053 replaces. SWIFT says enforcing it will depend on community adoption, and that it will not convert MT 9xx messages into camt itself. (Source: SWIFT CBPR+ roadmap)

What this means for a company. The SWIFT dates govern messages on the SWIFT network. Statements a bank delivers to its customers over host-to-host links, EBICS or online banking follow the bank’s own plans, and each bank sets its own date for ending MT940. Ask yours, in writing, whether and when it will stop sending MT940 and from when it can send camt.053.

What changes in reconciliation

  • Entries are classified by bank transaction codes (PMNT/RCDT/ESCT) instead of three-letter types (NTRF).
  • The payer’s end-to-end id, the counterparty and the remittance information are separate elements, not lines of :86: text.
  • Returns carry a reason code; batches can carry every transaction.
  • Amounts are never negative: the credit/debit indicator gives the direction, as the D/C mark did.
  • The full field mapping is in camt.053 vs MT940.

A checklist for the move

  1. List what you receive. For every bank and account: which statements (MT940, MT942, MT950) arrive, over which channel (SWIFT, host-to-host, EBICS, online banking), and which systems read them (ERP, treasury system, reconciliation tool).
  2. Ask each bank four questions. Which camt.053 version it sends (.001.02 or .001.08 are the usual answers), where its implementation guide is, which bank transaction codes and proprietary codes it uses, and whether batch detail comes in the camt.053 or in a separate camt.054.
  3. Get test files for real days. Ask for a camt.053 for days you already have as MT940. Open both side by side in the viewers: the opening and closing balances and the number of entries must match.
  4. Rewrite the matching rules. Rules built on the :61: type code and on parsing :86: text become rules on the bank transaction code, the end-to-end id, the counterparty elements and the remittance information. They get simpler, and they stop depending on one bank’s :86: layout.
  5. Decide how batches should look. A payment file booked as a batch is one entry on the statement. Decide whether you need the single payments in TxDtls, in a camt.054, or not at all, and ask the bank to set it up that way.
  6. Handle returns by reason code. Returned payments and unpaid direct debits arrive with a reason code in RtrInf (AC04, AM04, MD06 …). Route them by code instead of reading text.
  7. Check the encoding. camt files are UTF-8: names with accents and umlauts arrive as written. Make sure every system in the chain reads UTF-8.
  8. Run both in parallel. Receive MT940 and camt.053 together for at least one full month, including a month-end, and reconcile both until they agree every day.
  9. Move the intraday report too. If you use MT942 for intraday positions, switch to camt.052 at the same time; the codes and structure are the same as in camt.053.
  10. Switch off MT940, keep the archive readable. Once a full cycle reconciles, ask the bank to stop the MT940. Old MT940 files stay readable in the MT940 Viewer, and can be converted to camt.053 if a system needs them in that format.

While banks and systems move at different speeds, the MT940 Viewer converts an MT940 to camt.053.001.08 in the browser, and the same conversion is available to scripts at POST /api/v1/convert/mt940-to-camt053.