The upcoming end of support for ECC in 2027 is now common knowledge in the SAP space, with businesses worldwide embracing this opportunity to ready themselves for the future with some iteration of SAP S/4HANA. It’s a less well-known fact that there is also a deadline to consider this year, 2025, that will impact both ECC and S/4HANA customers, affecting how you pay your vendors and process your bank statements.
In November 2025, the MT message formats are being decommissioned, which could affect you if you send or receive the following message types to or from your banks:
- MT101 – Payment Request
- MT940 – End of Day Bank Statement
- MT942 – Intraday Bank Statement
These MT formats are being replaced with a new global XML standard, which, luckily for users worldwide, can hold much more information:
- PAIN.001 – Customer Credit Transfer Initiation
- CAMT.053 – Bank To Customer Account Statement
- CAMT.052 – Bank To Customer Account Report
There are also some additional file formats such as PAIN.002 where a bank can provide a payment status report which can be imported into your SAP system to notify users if a payment has been successfully received and processed by the bank.
If you’re not aware of this global change and what you need to do, then now would be a good time to contact your bank to understand what they are doing and how you will be affected in November. Depending on the number of banks your company works with, this could be a sizeable project to get your SAP system ready for the November deadline and ensure cash processes are not disrupted.
Our SAP Finance consultants are already working with a number of our customers operating both ECC and S/4HANA to understand what this change in banking message types could mean for them, and how they can prepare. This is a great opportunity to not only keep processes running but also make the most of what additional benefits the new XML standards can bring, leading to productivity gains in back-office operations.
Whether you are an existing customer of ours or not, get in touch today if you would like to speak with a senior SAP Finance Consultant or Solution Architect to get some impartial expert advice. Don’t wait until the last minute- start preparing now to ensure a smooth transition!