ISO 20022, G20’s P2P could help drive crypto to new all-time highs in 2026

The new international electronic payment standard, ISO 20022, was implemented in November last year. With the G20’s push for peer-to-peer transactions and the integration of AI in settlement structures, financial intelligence business RedCompass Labs believes the new payment trends might just be what the crypto market needs to reach new highs.

The crypto market began the year below $3 trillion, but with a few positives in a geopolitically jittery environment, it has helped it climb back above that level. Bitcoin and Ethereum are still consolidating near their end-of-2025 prices, although RedCompass Labs predicts that the upcoming changes in global payment standards could flip the bearish spell bullish.

ISO 20022 to remove unstructured addresses in 2026

ISO 20022 finally moved beyond theory and implementation into enforcement towards the end of last year. However, the deadline for removing fully unstructured addresses is slated for November 2026, which means there’s more to come.

Some banking institutions are still using decades-old customer records scattered across onboarding platforms, internal channels, and payment engines, which is why their address data is inconsistent, incomplete, or duplicated.

Unstructured postal addresses will no longer be accepted in CBPR+ messages come the last quarter of the year, and SWIFT, SEPA, and the UK’s CHAPS system will reject transactions containing free-text address fields. 

Handling of payment exceptions and investigations is next, followed by testing of operational resilience. Real-time gross settlement systems and high-value payment platforms are also updating ISO rulebooks to launch hybrid addresses, in tandem with minimum data harmonization standards set by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), ahead of an end-2027 deadline.

AI would be made operational to monitor service outages

2025 saw several major outages in financial services, including the European Central Bank’s seven-hour outage and Citibank’s nationwide disruption, which affected around 200 million customers. In the UK, the Treasury questioned nine banks after more than 800 hours of unplanned downtime over two years.

As reported by Cryptopolitan on Thursday, Generative AI tools are now being used to read regulatory rulebooks, map technical schemas, generate documentation, support testing, and even write code. Amazon Web Services engineers have reportedly started testing Gen AI’s capabilities to resolve network issues in the XRPL ecosystem.

According to RedCompass, the Built-By-AI (BBai) project would track the extent of system changes produced by AI and approved by humans. Most banks are currently at zero adoption, although early pilots have reached 5% to 10%. 

On the instant payments side of the matter, payment service providers and corporates are being pushed to align processes, standardize records, and improve metadata quality. EU banks outside the eurozone, such as those in countries like Poland and Sweden, must implement SEPA Instant payments by January 2027 and July 2027. 

Stablecoins connect crypto markets to traditional finance

When Visa partnered with Circle to enable USDC settlement for US banks last year, it reported that its stablecoin settlement activity counted an annualized run rate above $3.5 billion by late November. The figure may be small compared with Visa’s $17 trillion in annual fiat settlements, but stablecoins have the reach to flip fiat settlements, per RedCompass Lab’s analysis.  

The United States’ GENIUS Act showed the world how stablecoins can be issued and integrated, and Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) law has created a unified regulatory rulebook for countries within the EU.

Canada is nearing a turning point with its national Real-Time Rail system, as Payments Canada has completed much of its industry testing ahead of a production launch this year. The system will support 24/7, data-rich settlement for retail and commercial use cases.

A regulatory change under the Retail Payment Activities Act in the country will enable supervised payment service providers to connect directly. Retail peer-to-peer transfer costs still average 2.6% per $1,000, far above the 1% target. 

However, fraudulent actors would more than likely step up their efforts to swindle money from businesses and their clientele. Real-time settlement leaves little to no room for recovery once funds move, and because many scams take place outside banks, it might be too long before a transaction ever reaches a regulated financial institution.

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