Harmonising payments in Switzerland according to ISO 20022

INFORMATION SHEET

A new era for payments in Switzerland – and how you benefit! Payment transactions in Switzerland are being standardised as far as possible, and also brought into line with the inter-national standard, ISO 20022. The ISO standard is based on the European SEPA system. The primary benefit for you as a company or business owner will be the time gained from standardised processes, greater efficiency, and lower proces­sing, development and maintenance costs.

Key changes at a glance

Credit transfers – now in XML format The methods currently used for credit transfers by the banks (DTA) and PostFinance (EZAG) are to be harmonised by ap-plying the ISO 20022 standard, bringing them into line with the new ISO­standard XML format. All providers of payment services in Switzerland will be required to make this switch. The current DTA format will cease to be supported on the market as of 30 June 2018. However, you will still be able to submit all your payment instructions to Bank CIC using the DTA format until the end of 2018. Instead of DTA, you can begin using the new “pain.001” XML format with immediate effect.

Notifications and reporting – camt messagesAccount statements and notifications are being brought into line with the ISO 20022 standard, with the use of uniform formats facilitating straight through processing (known as “STP”). Your accounting system will need to support the new

format if these files are to be processed correctly. So­called cash management (“camt”) messages are to be used for ac-count statements.

Transfers – identification via IBANFrom the end of 2020 at the latest, only the IBAN will be used as the primary means of identification, rather than the conventional account number. Payment instructions that comply with the SWIFT MT standard are not affected by the changes to payments in Switzerland, and will still be suppor­ted.

Bank CIC (Switzerland) Ltd. cic.ch, Telephone 0800 242 124 1/3

ZURN

A20

1808

08

INFORMATION SHEET

Bank CIC (Switzerland) Ltd. cic.ch, Telephone 0800 242 124 2/3

Recommendation: check your software as soon as possible!Companies which use data transfer functions to communicate with the Bank must take immediate action with regard to the software solution they use (accounts receivable and payable, payroll and pension payments, as well as account reconcili-ation and statements, liquidity and cash management). The type of software you use at your company is crucial for the switchover to ISO 20022:

Do you use standardised software solutions?Your software partner will probably provide an ISO 20022 update.

•Contact your software partner and ask them for an ISO 20022 update

•Upgrade your software

•Undertake the necessary configurations (e.g. bank details, account number, master data).

Do you use individual software solutions?Make your software solutions ISO 20022­compatible.

•Contact your IT department and/or your software partner

•Launch a project to carry out the implementation in a struc-tured manner

•Conduct an impact analysis and define your requirements

•Plan implementation and testing

•Your IT department and/or your software partner will im-plement the ISO requirements

Recommendation: start converting all your master data to IBAN format now.

The Bank CIC Roadmap

pain = Payment Initiationcamt = Cash Management

Further changes such as the standardisation of direct debits or the introduction of QR invoices to replace conventional pay-ment slips will follow in due course. Details can be found on the internet under cic.ch/harmonisation-pt.

November 2017

Credit transfersTransfers in CH formatNew: pain.001

Notification/ReportingAccount statement for previous day, excluding details of collective bookingsNew: camt.053

Notification/ReportingDisplay of BESR credits, with details New: camt.054

Notification/ReportingStatus reports in CH fomatNew: pain.002

Notification/ReportingDisplay of credits/debits for all collective bookingsExtension: camt.054

Projected

Projected

From Q4 2018

Harmonising payments in Switzerland according to ISO 20022

ZURN

A20

1808

08

Test platform – transmission of test files

As soon as you have brought your software into line with ISO 20022, you can submit test files to us, or download such files from us. To do so, follow these steps:

1. First, go to the cic.ch/harmonisierung-zv/testing website.

2. Then follow the detailed instructions that are given on the site to send us your test files for the pain.001 format (re­ places DTA), or to download our standard test files, containing sample payment information, for the camt.053 (extends MT940) and camt.054 (replaces BESR) formats.

3. You will then receive feedback from us about whether or not transmission to our test database could be completed successfully. You can notify us at any time of any problems on your part.

EBICS – new product for standardised payments Bank CIC introduced EBICS (Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard) in November 2017. EBICS is an international standard for the secure exchange of payment data via the internet between client and bank. It is compatible with the new ISO 20022 standard. With EBICS, we offer you an alternative to e­banking and to KeyPack. We believe there is a demand for such a service, especially for companies and business owners. For more information, please visit cic.ch/ebics. If you would like to use EBICS, please contact your relationship manager directly.

Further information, including the most important frequently asked questions, and the current roadmap can be found on the internet at: cic.ch/harmonisation-pt. This page is updated continually.

If you have any questions, please call us directly on +41 (0)800 630 510, or send an e­mail to ebanking@cic.ch..

INFORMATION SHEET

Bank CIC (Switzerland) Ltd. cic.ch, Telephone 0800 242 124 3/3

ZURN

A20

1808

08

Harmonising payments in Switzerland according to ISO 20022