Finastra extends collaboration with the National Bank of Greece for ISO 20022 migration

By Joy Dumasia

Finastra is supporting the National Bank of Greece (NBG) with its transition to the new ISO payments standard, coming into force from November 2022. The bank is upgrading to the latest version of Finastra’s Fusion Global PAYplus payments hub. 

Fusion Global PAYplus will enable NBG to fully harness the richness of the new ISO 20022 standard, improving the efficiency of screening, reconciliation and payment processing and enabling a richer customer experience for domestic and cross-border transactions. 

Tal Weiser, Managing Director Sales, Global Services Payments, Finastra, said: “Finastra’s Fusion Global PAYplus payments hub is already playing an integral payments processing role at the National Bank of Greece. With the ISO 20022 regulatory mandates just around the corner, NBG needed the assurance they were collaborating with a partner able to successfully support their transition. Finastra’s Fusion Global PAYplus will help expedite their modernization journey, giving them the tools they need to address future challenges and meet all critical deadlines.” 

NBG is already using Fusion Global PAYplus to process mass payments, high-value payments and real-time payments and will be adopting the ISO 20022 standard across all three rails, as and when applicable. Fusion Global PAYplus supports MT to MX processing, transforming SWIFT’s MT messages into ISO 20022 compliant XML-based message formats and vice versa. This will give NBG the flexibility to take a phased approach to migration, allowing them to send and receive both MT and MX formatted messages during the transition phase and switch to the fully-fledged MX format once they’re ready to do so. 

Babis Ermidis, Payments Sector Head at NBG, said: “As a long-term Finastra partner and user of Fusion Global PAYplus, we know that we are in expert hands and that Finastra will help us meet all regulatory requirements and address new customer needs as they arise. We look forward to a seamless and successful migration to the new standard and to delivering the benefits of ISO 20022 to our customers, as well as optimizing our internal processes.”

Fusion Global PAYplus has proven inbuilt transformation mechanisms to accelerate integration with other critical partner systems such as Compliance and Core Banking systems. The product also offers several value-added services based on the ISO 20022 catalogue, easily integrated with the bank’s customer-facing channels utilizing out-of-the-box APIs.