CHAPS: wider mandatory ISO 20022 data from November 2027

CHAPS is the UK payment system for high-value sterling payments, and its messages use ISO 20022, a standard that can carry rich, structured data. The Bank of England, which operates CHAPS, decides which data fields are mandatory (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

From November 2027 the Bank requires purpose codes on all CHAPS payments, and a Legal entity identifier (LEI) on certain payments between financial institutions. A purpose code says why a payment is made; an LEI is a 20-character code that identifies a legal entity (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

Purpose codes become mandatory for every CHAPS payment, through the CHAPS rulebook, for channels within the control of direct participants (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

LEIs become mandatory in pacs.004 return payments and in pacs.009 cover payments between financial institutions. A cover payment is the bank-to-bank leg that funds a customer transfer sent separately (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

As an illustrative example only: a payment for a property purchase carries the code for that purpose, and the return of a bank-to-bank transfer carries the LEI of each institution (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

In July 2026 the Bank decided not to mandate structured remittance information, the details of what a payment settles, from November 2027, and has published no new date. Direct participants still receive it when it is sent (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

The same release moves the RTGS messages from the 2019 to the 2025 version of the ISO 20022 schema (RTGS standards change request (external site)).

The requirements apply to CHAPS direct participants, the banks and payment institutions that hold settlement accounts in RTGS and send CHAPS payments (Bank of England policy statement (external site)).

• Payments Operations Analyst: repairs CHAPS payments that lack a purpose code or a required LEI.
• Payments Messaging Specialist (SWIFT): updates message validation for the new mandatory fields and the 2025 schema.
• Data Governance Analyst: sets ownership and quality rules for purpose codes and LEIs.
• Reference & Security Master Data Analyst: maintains the LEIs of financial institution counterparties.
• Cash Management Product Manager: adds purpose code capture to payment channels for clients.
• Transaction Banking Analyst: explains the new data fields to corporate clients that send CHAPS payments.

• July 2026: update to the 2025 policy statement, including the decision on structured remittance (Bank of England (external site)).
• December 2026: updated list of RTGS changes; April 2027: final list (RTGS standards change request (external site)).
• November 2027: purpose codes and LEIs become mandatory (confirmed).

The exact go-live day within November 2027 follows the RTGS release calendar (Bank of England ISO 20022 page (external site)).

CHAPS moved to ISO 20022 messages as part of the renewal of RTGS. A 2022 policy statement (external site) set the plan for enhanced data, and a 2024 policy statement (external site) made the first fields mandatory.

The 2025 policy statement extends that list from 2027, and its July 2026 update removes structured remittance from it (Bank of England (external site)).