The Bank of Israel issued a public consultation paper on adoption of the ISO 20022 messaging standard in Israel’s payments ecosystem, seeking input on whether there is a need for broad-based adoption across all payment systems and for harmonised use of the standard across the payments array. ISO 20022 is presented as a uniform, structured language for exchanging financial information that can support a wide range of processes, including payments, securities and trade, and can improve efficiency, automation, transparency and controls. The Bank is implementing ISO 20022 in its Zahav real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system and its participants, while noting that the Masav-operated Faster Payments system and SWIFT already operate using the standard. The consultation asks stakeholders to comment on advantages and disadvantages, implementation challenges and significances, possible adoption timetables, whether a dedicated work team is needed to realise business benefits for payment service providers and customers, and the perspectives from which harmonisation may be required; the paper also links consistent data fields across systems to potential efficiency gains, including for AML and CFT compliance and complex business payment and purchasing processes. Submissions are invited until April 30, 2025.

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