CAMT.053: ISO 20022 electronic bank statement

Q: What is the difference between CAMT.053 and CAMT.054?

CAMT.053 is the 'bank account statement' (Bank to Customer Statement) — it lists all debit and credit transactions over a given period (typically a day or a week). CAMT.054 is the 'debit/credit notification' (Bank to Customer Debit Credit Notification) — it reports specific transactions in near real-time, particularly incoming payments with their QR reference. CAMT.054 is used for reconciling QR-bills; CAMT.053 is used for overall account reconciliation.

Q: Which Swiss banks provide CAMT.053 files?

Almost all Swiss banks offer CAMT.053 files for download from their corporate e-banking portal, or via automatic transmission through an EBICS connection. PostFinance, UBS, Credit Suisse (now UBS), Raiffeisen, the Cantonal Banks and private banks all support this format since the ISO 20022 migration completed in 2022.

Q: Can MT940 still be used instead of CAMT.053?

The MT940 (proprietary SWIFT format) has been discontinued by most Swiss banks as part of the ISO 20022 migration. In Switzerland, the migration to CAMT was completed during 2022. New accounting systems and ERPs must support CAMT.053 — MT940 is no longer a recommended format for new integrations.

Definition

CAMT.053 (Bank to Customer Statement — Cash Management) is a financial message format defined by the international standard ISO 20022. It is the standard for electronic bank account statements transmitted by banks to their corporate clients. In Switzerland, it has replaced legacy proprietary formats (MT940, heterogeneous bank CSV files) following the ISO 20022 migration completed in 2022.

Structure of the XML file

The CAMT.053 file is a structured XML document organised in hierarchical blocks:

Header — information about the issuing bank, generation date and time.
Statement — one block per bank account included in the statement.
- Balance — opening and closing balance for the period.
- Entry (N entries) — one entry per transaction (debit or credit) including:
  - Amount, currency, value date, booking date
  - Counterparty information (name, IBAN)
  - Transaction reference (QR reference for QR-bills)
  - Additional details (payment reason, internal reference)

This standardised XML structure enables accounting software to process statements from all banks in an identical manner, without needing to adapt the parser to each bank.

CAMT.053 vs CAMT.054

	CAMT.053	CAMT.054
Name	Bank to Customer Statement	Bank to Customer Debit Credit Notification
Use	Periodic account statement (ledger)	Individual transaction notification
Frequency	Daily, weekly	Near real-time
Typical use	Overall account reconciliation	Reconciliation of incoming QR-bills

Swiss context

The Swiss migration to ISO 20022 was led by SIX Group and the Swiss banks. It is part of the global strategy to modernise interbank payments (SWIFT's migration to ISO 20022 finalised in 2025). In Switzerland, the transition coincided with the introduction of the QR-bill: CAMT.054 carries the QR reference of received payments, enabling automatic reconciliation of invoices.

CAMT.053 statements are available to businesses either by manual download from their corporate e-banking portal, or by automatic transmission via EBICS (a secure bank communication protocol), which delivers files directly into the ERP or accounting software.

How Neoffice processes them

Neoffice imports CAMT.053 and CAMT.054 files directly from e-banking or via an EBICS connection. Each transaction is automatically matched against accounting entries and open invoices. For QR-bills, the QR reference contained in the CAMT.054 enables 100% reconciliation without any manual intervention.