Full disclosure: I’ve been participating via the Standards Council of Canada in the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) financial services standards groups for Technical Committee 68 for over 15 years.  So, I’ve played a big part in developing ISO 20022 as a set of data and message standards. I am still active in various aspects of TC68 (among other committees) and also supporting and contributing to the continuing development of ISO20022 API and deployments via the ISO 20022 Plus website, where you can find implementations of the ASN.1 and XML editions of the message standard, as well as translations of the messages into JSON, FlatBuffers, and ProtocolBuffers formats for all your various ISO 20022 API implementation needs (you’re welcome!)

ISO 20022 is an international financial messaging standard aiming to improve cross-border payments and other financial transactions. It provides a common language and format for exchanging financial information between different systems and organizations. Here's how ISO 20022 improves cross-border payments:

1. Enhanced Data Quality: ISO 20022 enables the inclusion of more detailed and structured data in payment messages. This improves the accuracy and completeness of information exchanged between financial institutions, reducing errors and exceptions. The increased data quality helps to streamline payment processing, reconciliation, and reporting.
2. Standardized Message Format: ISO 20022 introduces a standardized message format for cross-border payments, replacing the previous country-specific formats. This promotes interoperability between different financial systems and enables seamless communication between parties. The standardized format ensures consistent data representation across borders, reducing the need for costly and time-consuming message conversions.
3. Richer Data Content: ISO 20022 allows for the inclusion of additional payment information beyond basic remittance details. It supports transmitting more comprehensive data, such as invoice numbers, purchase order references, tax information, and other relevant details. This richer data content improves payment transparency, facilitates automated reconciliation processes, and enhances anti-money laundering and fraud detection capabilities.
4. Straight-Through Processing (STP): ISO 20022 promotes straight-through processing, the automated end-to-end processing of payment messages without manual intervention. The standardized format and enhanced data quality enable financial institutions to automate payment processes, including validation, routing, and reconciliation. STP reduces processing times, minimizes errors, and improves overall efficiency in cross-border payment operations.
5. Extended Remittance Information: ISO 20022 allows for the inclusion of more comprehensive remittance information in payment messages. This enables the transmission of detailed invoice data, payment instructions, other supporting documents, and the payment itself. The availability of extended remittance information enhances transparency, improves reconciliation processes, and simplifies the cash application for businesses.
6. Futureproofing and Scalability: ISO 20022 is designed to be future-proof and adaptable to evolving business and regulatory requirements. The standard provides flexibility to accommodate new payment types, emerging technologies, and changing compliance standards. This ensures that cross-border payment systems built on ISO 20022 can easily incorporate future enhancements and innovations, allowing for scalable and sustainable solutions.

Plus, so much more - These advancements result in more efficient, transparent, and secure cross-border payment operations, benefiting financial institutions, businesses and individuals involved in international transactions.