ISO 20022-5:2013

Overview

ISO 20022-5:2013 - "Financial services - Universal financial industry message scheme - Part 5: Reverse engineering" provides guidelines to extract and translate existing industry message sets into ISO 20022‑compliant BusinessTransactions and MessageSets. Prepared to complement ISO 20022-1, this part explains how to compare IndustryMessageSets with the ISO 20022 Repository, perform gap analysis, develop equivalent ISO 20022 artefacts, submit updates to the Registration Authority, and prepare migration and coexistence documentation. It supports interoperability and migration planning across financial messaging ecosystems.

Key topics and technical requirements

• Reverse engineering scope: Guidance on extracting relevant information from existing IndustryMessageSets and aligning it with ISO 20022 logical models.
• Four core activities:
  • Gap analysis - compare IndustryMessageSets against Repository entries to identify missing or differing functionality.
  • Development - create or extend ISO 20022 BusinessTransactions and MessageSets as needed.
  • Registration - prepare submissions for the ISO 20022 Registration Authority.
  • Migration preparation - produce convergence, coexistence and migration planning documentation.
• Workflow and deliverables: Structured steps for BusinessArea, BusinessProcess, BusinessTransaction, MessageDefinition and BusinessRole analyses (see document sections on workflow and gap analysis).
• Use cases and scenarios: Three classification scenarios (no existing sets, existing IndustryMessageSets only, or both ISO 20022 and IndustryMessageSets present) guide the appropriate approach (full development, conversion, or extension).
• Repository & Registration Authority: Emphasizes that the ISO 20022 Repository stores compliant BusinessTransactions and MessageSets and that updates are submitted through the Registration Authority.
• Objective constraints: Reverse engineering is guidance (not a prescriptive methodology) and update requests should be based on valid business justification.

Applications and who uses it

• Financial institutions & market infrastructures: Map legacy messaging (e.g., proprietary or industry-specific message sets) to ISO 20022 to enable standard messaging, straight-through processing, and interoperability.
• Standards bodies & registration teams: Prepare compliant BusinessTransactions/MessageSets for the ISO 20022 Repository and manage registration submissions.
• System integrators & vendors: Plan conversions, coexistence strategies, and migration timelines for payment, securities, trade, and corporate‑to‑bank messaging implementations.
• Project managers & migration planners: Use gap analysis and migration guidance to produce convergence and coexistence documentation and to plan phased adoption.

Related standards

• ISO 20022-1: Metamodel (complementary foundation)
• ISO 20022-2 to ISO 20022-8: UML profile, Modelling, XML Schema generation, Message transport, Registration, ASN.1 generation - all part of the ISO 20022 series that work together with Part 5 for a complete migration and modelling approach.

Keywords: ISO 20022-5, reverse engineering, ISO 20022, financial messaging, Registration Authority, BusinessTransactions, MessageSets, IndustryMessageSets, ISO 20022 Repository, gap analysis, migration planning.