Does Edaa use ISO 15022 or ISO 20022?

ISO 15022 straight-through processing was part of the April 2022 phase of the Saudi post-trade programme. ISO 20022 support is reported for the November 2024 phase, but the message set and scope could not be confirmed from public documents.

Do UAE depositories use Swift?

It differs by venue. ADX set up a Swift BIC in September 2026 without naming the message standard. Dubai CSD described its participant messaging as proprietary in January 2024. Nasdaq Dubai CSD uses Swift MT599 and MT535 for specific transfer and depositary receipt flows.

Is MT5xx being retired in the Gulf?

No retirement date has been announced. Swift has set no end date for ISO 15022 securities messages. The cash leg has moved to ISO 20022 in Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt, and Oman’s RTGS supports both MT and ISO 20022.

Is there a market practice for each Gulf market?

No country-specific market practice document for these seven markets could be found. Rely on each depository’s and custodian’s own documents and confirm details with them.

Securities settlement messaging in the GCC and Egypt, market by market

Written and maintained by ZagTrader. Last reviewed 21 October 2026. How this page is sourced and checked

Global custodians reach Gulf markets over Swift ISO 15022, but the depositories behind them do not all work the same way. The Saudi depository, Edaa, introduced straight-through processing of ISO 15022 messaging in 2022; Dubai CSD describes its participant messaging as proprietary; Muscat Clearing and Depository is introducing Swift during 2026; for several markets no public message standard could be found. This page sets out what the public record says for each market, with the source for every statement and a note where a source could not be confirmed.

In short

Settlement messaging by market, from public sources (checked 21 October 2026)
Market	Depository and clearing	Messaging with participants	Cash leg
Saudi Arabia	Edaa (Securities Depository Center); Muqassa (Securities Clearing Center)	ISO 15022 straight-through processing at Edaa since the April 2022 post-trade programme. ISO 20022 support is reported for the November 2024 phase; the detail could not be confirmed.	SARIE (SAMA). No SAMA statement on ISO 20022 for the RTGS was found.
UAE: ADX	AD Clear; AD CSD	ADX joined Swift with BIC ADSEAEADXXX in September 2026 to message custodians, CSDs and ICSDs. The message standard was not named.	UAEFTS. No official ISO 20022 statement was found.
UAE: DFM	Dubai CSD; Dubai Clear	Proprietary messaging formats, with a technology refresh under way (Dubai CSD PFMI disclosure, January 2024).	As above.
UAE: Nasdaq Dubai	Nasdaq Dubai CSD	Swift MT599 for transfers to the US registrar and depositary receipt movements; MT535 statements from depositary receipt issuing banks (procedures, December 2021).	As above.
Kuwait	Kuwait Clearing Company (Maqasa): CSD, clearing and CCP	No public statement of Swift or ISO messaging with custodians was found. The public rule book describes sequenced exchange-to-KCC trade feeds.	KASSIP (Central Bank of Kuwait): ISO 20022 since 2021; KCC joined KASSIP in 2023.
Qatar	Edaa Qatar (QCSD)	Members and custodians take clearing reports from the CSD system; the settlement summary goes to Qatar Central Bank by Swift (undated procedure guide).	QA-RTGS: ISO 20022 since December 2024.
Oman	Muscat Clearing and Depository (MCD)	Introducing Swift in 2026: phase 1 (user to application) by Q2 2026 and phase 2 (application to application) planned for year-end 2026, as announced in March 2026. The standard was not named.	CBO RTGS supports MT and ISO 20022; the cash leg of securities operations settles on pacs.009.
Bahrain	Bahrain Clear	T+2 delivery versus payment. No public messaging standard was found.	CBB RTGS: no ISO 20022 statement found.
Egypt	MCDR	No current public statement was found. A 2010 rating report recorded plans for ISO 15022 messaging into MCDR systems.	CBE RTGS and interbank Swift: ISO 20022 from 21 June 2026.

Saudi Arabia: Edaa and Muqassa

The Saudi post-trade technology programme went live in April 2022. Its first phase listed straight-through processing of ISO 15022 messaging at Edaa, the securities depository, together with daily and ad hoc reconciliation and reporting for participants, and extended Muqassa’s clearing to equities, sukuk, bonds and funds. The second phase went live on 25 November 2024 and improved messaging and reporting. Tadawul Group’s 2024 annual report is indexed as saying that Edaa adopted the ISO 20022 messaging standard, but the report could not be opened, so the message set and the scope (custodian link, issuer reporting or both) are not confirmed here.

Saudi listed securities settle on T+2, in place since April 2017. For a custodian or broker, the working messages are the ISO 15022 settlement set: MT540 to MT543 instructions, MT548 status advices, MT544 to MT547 confirmations, MT535 holdings statements and MT564 corporate action notifications.

International investors usually reach the market through a local custodian. Clearstream, for example, publishes how its clients instruct Saudi securities movements with MT540 and MT542, which it routes through its local link. That describes the client side of the chain, not the depository’s own interface.

United Arab Emirates: three venues, three pictures

Abu Dhabi. ADX announced in September 2026 that it had set up its Swift BIC, ADSEAEADXXX, to message custodians, central securities depositories and international CSDs as part of its post-trade programme. The announcement does not say whether the flows will use ISO 15022 or ISO 20022, or when each flow goes live. The AD CSD operational rules booklet does not mention Swift or ISO.

Dubai. Dubai CSD’s PFMI disclosure of January 2024 says its systems use proprietary messaging formats with participants and that a technology refresh is under way. Dubai Clear has been the central counterparty since April 2020.

Nasdaq Dubai. The Nasdaq Dubai CSD runs on DFM’s CSD system. Its operating procedures (December 2021) use Swift MT599 free-format messages, with a published layout, for transfers to the US registrar and for depositary receipt movements, and MT535 statements from depositary receipt issuing banks.

Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Egypt

Kuwait. The Kuwait Clearing Company (Maqasa) is the CSD, the clearing house and, since the post-trade reforms of 2025, the central counterparty. Its public rule book, an older edition, describes sequenced trade feeds from the exchange and does not mention Swift or ISO. No public Swift user guide was found.
Qatar. The Edaa Qatar procedure guide says members and custodians print their clearing report from the CSD system, and that the summary of the financial settlement is sent to Qatar Central Bank by Swift, or by fax or e-mail if Swift is unavailable. The guide is undated and some settlement-day references may be out of date.
Oman. The Ministry of Finance reported in March 2026 that Muscat Clearing and Depository is introducing Swift as a single channel for trade settlement and clearing, settlement notifications, cash and securities confirmations, reconciliation, corporate actions and voting, and securities lending. Phase 1 (user to application) was due by Q2 2026 and phase 2 (application to application, straight-through processing) is planned for year-end 2026. The message standard was not named, and a separate project will replace the CSD system.
Bahrain. Bahrain Clear states a T+2 delivery versus payment settlement cycle. No public statement of its messaging standard was found.
Egypt. No current public statement of MCDR’s messaging with custodians was found. A 2010 rating report recorded plans for ISO 15022 messaging into MCDR systems and a national market practice group.

The cash leg is moving to ISO 20022 first

Across the region, the payment systems that settle the cash leg are adopting ISO 20022 sooner than the depositories. Kuwait’s KASSIP has exchanged ISO 20022 payment messages since 2021, and the Kuwait Clearing Company joined it in 2023. Qatar’s QA-RTGS launched on ISO 20022 in December 2024. Oman’s RTGS supports MT and ISO 20022, and the cash part of securities operations settles on pacs.009. Egypt’s central bank adopted ISO 20022 for interbank Swift messaging and its RTGS from 21 June 2026.

Globally, Swift retired MT for cross-border payment instructions on 22 November 2025. ISO 15022 MT5xx securities messages remain supported, with no Swift end date. ISO 20022 for securities is opt-in and driven by each market infrastructure. A broker or custodian in the region can therefore receive pacs and camt messages for cash while its securities flows stay on MT5xx, and needs to read both. See ISO 15022 and ISO 20022 for securities.

What this means in practice

Keep one table per market: depository, clearing house, message standard, channel (Swift, a depository gateway or files), settlement cycle and cash system. Review it when an infrastructure announces a change.
Expect ISO 15022 with custodians across the region, and check each depository’s own interface separately: it may be Swift, a gateway or proprietary files.
Model each business object once (instruction, status, holding, event) and map every format into it, so a market can move from files to MT, or from MT to ISO 20022, without changing operations.
Watch Oman and Abu Dhabi: MCD is introducing Swift during 2026 and ADX joined Swift in September 2026, and neither has named the message standard yet.
Test failing and unmatched paths per market, not only the happy path. See settlement fails triage.

Where ZagTrader fits

In Saudi Arabia, ZagTrader exchanges ISO 15022 messages with Edaa over the depository’s gateway: investor and account registration, settlement status, holdings statements and corporate action notifications. It also links Muqassa trade and settlement-instruction feeds to every order, so operations see trade by trade how far settlement has gone.

For Kuwait, ZagTrader reconciles each customer’s holdings with the Kuwait Clearing Company statement, physical and depository legs side by side, and keeps trades the depository has not yet registered out of the break list.

For DFM, QSE and EGX brokers, ZagTrader imports exchange trade files and sends ISO 15022 settlement instructions to custodians through the Swift Engine. With ADX now on Swift, the Swift Engine can add ADX as a counterparty in the same way it adds any custodian: register the partner BIC and the message templates, with no code change. As Muscat Clearing and Depository moves to Swift, the template-driven Swift Engine adds new counterparties and message sets through configuration reviewed under maker-checker.

The trading side of the same trades runs over FIX. For orders, executions, allocations and FIX post-trade messages, see the free ZagTrader FIX Parser and its guide to FIX connectivity in GCC and MENA markets.

Questions

Does Edaa use ISO 15022 or ISO 20022?: ISO 15022 straight-through processing was part of the April 2022 phase of the Saudi post-trade programme. ISO 20022 support is reported for the November 2024 phase, but the message set and scope could not be confirmed from public documents.
Do UAE depositories use Swift?: It differs by venue. ADX set up a Swift BIC in September 2026 without naming the message standard. Dubai CSD described its participant messaging as proprietary in January 2024. Nasdaq Dubai CSD uses Swift MT599 and MT535 for specific transfer and depositary receipt flows.
Is MT5xx being retired in the Gulf?: No retirement date has been announced. Swift has set no end date for ISO 15022 securities messages. The cash leg has moved to ISO 20022 in Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt, and Oman’s RTGS supports both MT and ISO 20022.
Is there a market practice for each Gulf market?: No country-specific market practice document for these seven markets could be found. Rely on each depository’s and custodian’s own documents and confirm details with them.

Messages in this guide

Sources

Sources were checked on the review date shown at the top of the page. Market infrastructures change their rules and messaging; confirm a detail with the depository or your custodian before you rely on it.

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