Consensys shared that it is supporting Swift with early-stage prototyping as the global financial infrastructure adds a blockchain-based digital ledger to its technology stack.

The Language of Money: ISO 20022

On November 22, 2025, SWIFT officially migrated all cross-border payment messages to the ISO 20022 standard ending decades of reliance on the legacy MT format. More than just a technical upgrade, ISO 20022 introduces rich, structured, and standardized payment data, designed to improve transparency, compliance, automation, and user experience across financial systems globally.

As of 22 November 2025, ISO 20022 is now the standard for cross-border payment instructions - a major milestone delivered through years of collaboration across the global financial community. Adoption is already strong: yesterday, 97% of payment instructions were sent in ISO… pic.twitter.com/AHfqw9kezp— Swift (@swiftcommunity) November 25, 2025

This move was backed by the G20 and years of collaboration among central banks, financial institutions, and infrastructure providers.

But Data Alone Doesn’t Move Money

ISO 20022 standardizes how payment instructions are communicated but it does not actually process the money. That requires a settlement infrastructure capable of executing these instructions. And that’s where Ethereum comes into the picture. But Ethereum Mainnet has limitations for institutions: it is too slow, too public and too expensive for the volumes traditional finance deals with daily.