About pacs008 ​

pacs008 is a Python toolkit for automating ISO 20022 FI-to-FI customer credit transfer workflows.

What it does ​

  • Generates XML for pacs.008 and related pacs message definitions
  • Validates data and XML against schemas
  • Exposes a FastAPI service for automated workflows
  • Provides a CLI for local execution and CI pipelines
  • Supports structured data sources including CSV, JSON, JSONL, SQLite, and Parquet
  • Validates IBAN (75 countries, ISO 7064 checksum) and BIC (ISO 9362) identifiers
  • Cleanses payment data for SWIFT compliance with transliteration and field-length enforcement
  • Streams large datasets in configurable chunks for memory-efficient processing
  • Ships a Docker image for containerised API deployment

Who it is for ​

  • payment operations teams
  • platform engineers building internal payment processing infrastructure
  • migration programmes moving toward ISO 20022
  • compliance and QA teams validating outbound payment messages

Validation ​

Multiple validation layers operate before any XML is written:

  • JSON Schema validation against 20 message-specific schemas
  • IBAN format and checksum verification covering 75 countries
  • BIC structure and country-code validation per ISO 9362
  • XSD validation of generated XML against the official ISO 20022 schemas

Security ​

pacs008 applies defence-in-depth across every layer of the processing pipeline:

  • XXE prevention through defusedxml for all XML parsing operations
  • path-traversal protection with strict directory allowlisting
  • PII masking in structured JSON logs to support GDPR and PCI DSS compliance
  • SQL injection prevention with strict table-name sanitisation for SQLite sources

2026 readiness ​

pacs008 is designed around the operational deadlines and data-quality requirements relevant to 2026:

  • structured and hybrid postal address handling for CBPR+ and scheme migrations
  • stronger validation around debtor, creditor, and agent data quality
  • version-aware generation across legacy and current pacs.008 revisions
  • automation paths that fit CI, batch operations, and internal payment services

Operational focus ​

pacs008 goes beyond message definition reference to support operational implementation:

  • generate XML from real source data
  • validate before delivery
  • model payment chains and downstream formats
  • make scheme-specific changes testable in code

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