Swiss Payments

The Swiss financial center is migrating payment traffic to the structured and hybrid addresses for both cross-border payments (SEPA, Swift) and domestic payments (SPS, SIC) in accordance with the ISO 20022 standard. Both the structured address and the hybrid address support the correct identification of the parties involved in a payment. In this way, the Swiss financial center meets the requirements of the global regulatory authorities with regard to more transparent monitoring and the prevention of money laundering.

Swift (Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus, "CBPR+") and the EPC (SEPA rulebooks) had originally planned the mandatory use of the structured address or the hybrid address from November 2026. During summer 2026, both Swift and the EPC decided, at the request of various market participants, to suspend the deadline of November 2026. Consequently, the unstructured address can continue to be used in the Swift network for the time being.

As the structured and hybrid addresses are already largely established in Swiss and Liechtenstein payment traffic, the Payments Committee Switzerland ("PaCoS") has decided that no adjustments to the introduction date are required. The migration to the structured addresses, and the discontinuation of the unstructured addresses, already initiated in Swiss payment traffic, scheduled for November 2026, will therefore continue as planned.

The Swiss Implementation Guidelines SPS 2026 and the Swiss Implementation Guidelines for the QR bill, version 2.4, valid from 14 November 2026, therefore remain unchanged and in force.

The SIC release of 13 November 2026 will be implemented as planned, albeit with an adjusted scope. However, in order not to hinder forwarding from or into the Swift network, validation of the addresses will be waived. It should therefore be noted that payment orders containing unstructured addresses may continue to be received (see Release Notes SIC Platform Release 5.3).

• Since March 2023, only the structured address may be used in cross-border payment traffic (payment type "X") for the parties "Ultimate Creditor" and "Ultimate Debtor".
• The use of the hybrid address has been permitted since November 2025 for all parties and all payment types ("D" for domestic payments, "S" for SEPA, "X" for cross-border and foreign-currency domestic payments).
• On 22 November 2025, the Swiss Implementation Guidelines for the QR-bill, version 2.3, entered into force. Since that date, only the structured address has been permitted in the QR-bill. Further information and implementation support
• The use of the structured/hybrid address will become mandatory from November 2026 for all parties and all payment types ("D" for domestic payments, "S" for SEPA, "X" for cross-border and foreign-currency domestic payments) within the framework of the Swiss Payment Standards ("SPS"). From November 2026, the address elements "Town Name" and "Country" must always be used and populated with the correct content whenever an address is provided. Further information and factsheets
• Banks may continue to offer additional options as part of their customer services that are supported outside the Swiss Payment Standards. This may also include the unstructured address.

Characters in Unicode character set UTF-8 can be used in ISO 20022 XML messages. According to the Swiss Payment Standards (SPS), the following subset of characters is permitted: printable characters of the following Unicode blocks:

• Basic Latin (Unicode codepoints U+0020 to U+007E)
• Latin1 Supplement (Unicode codepoints U+00A0 to U+00FF)
• Latin Extended A (Unicode codepoints U+0100 to U+017F)

The previous rule (valid until November 2022) was difficult to explain and outdated. Negative feedback came repeatedly, especially from French- and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland. Consequently, the ISO 20022 PT Switzerland working group decided to make the adjustment in the course of the version change and also anticipate future developments (e.g. standardized character set for all personal register files from January 2024 – two-year parallel phase (cf. federal media release)). The SIC Implementation Guidelines were adapted accordingly.