Swift has deferred the payments changes planned for its 2026 standards release, withdrawing a November 14 deadline that would have led to the rejection of cross-border payment messages with unstructured postal addresses. The decision has prompted related postponements for CHAPS, Fedwire and SEPA, although Switzerland’s SIX-operated payment infrastructure is retaining its November deadline. Swift expects to determine a revised timeline for payment-related address requirements after industry consultations by December 2026. The delay exposes a gap between adopting ISO 20022 messages and supplying the structured data they are designed to carry. Swift monitoring found that 61.2% of debtor addresses and 62.9% of creditor addresses still arrived as unstructured text, even as more than 98% of cross-border instructions transmitted in ISO 20022 envelopes. Banks face work beyond changing message formats: customer records, payment systems and screening processes must handle address components accurately from the point where payment details first enter the system.