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FinCrime Institute
Category: International Bodies and Standards

Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures

Also known as: CPMI, BIS Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures
Simply put

The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) is an international body, hosted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), that works to make payment, clearing, and settlement systems safer and more efficient. It sets standards, monitors developments, and makes recommendations in these areas, and it publishes analytical reports and a glossary of related terminology. It is a standard setter rather than a body that issues binding law.

Formal definition

The CPMI is an international standard setter, hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, that promotes, monitors, and makes recommendations regarding the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing, settlement, and related arrangements. Its outputs are predominantly analytical reports on payment, clearing, and settlement systems, standards and recommendations for market infrastructures, and a published glossary of payments and market infrastructure terminology. The CPMI also convenes work on specific topics, such as a taskforce on cross-border payments. As a standard-setting body, its recommendations are not binding law and take effect through adoption and implementation by relevant authorities and jurisdictions; practitioners should confirm the status and applicability of any specific CPMI standard against the implementing framework in their jurisdiction.

Why it matters

Payment, clearing, and settlement systems are the plumbing through which value moves across the financial system, and their safety and efficiency directly affect the environment in which financial crime controls operate. The CPMI, as an international standard setter hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, promotes, monitors, and makes recommendations about these arrangements. For AML and financial crime professionals, understanding the CPMI matters because the design of market infrastructures shapes how transactions are routed, recorded, and reconciled, factors that in turn influence the data available for monitoring, screening, and investigation.

Crucially, the CPMI is a standard-setting body rather than a source of binding law. Its outputs are predominantly analytical reports and recommendations, and they generally take effect only when relevant authorities and jurisdictions choose to adopt and implement them. This distinction is important for compliance practitioners: a CPMI recommendation does not, by itself, create a legal obligation on an obliged entity in the way that, for example, the US Bank Secrecy Act and FinCEN rules, the EU AML framework, or the UK Money Laundering Regulations do. Practitioners should confirm the status and applicability of any specific CPMI standard against the implementing framework in their own jurisdiction.

Who it's relevant to

Compliance officers at payment service providers and financial institutions
Professionals responsible for AML programs benefit from understanding how CPMI standards and recommendations may shape the payment, clearing, and settlement infrastructure their institutions rely on. Because CPMI outputs are not binding law, compliance teams should treat them as context for the broader regulatory environment and confirm any operational obligation against the implementing framework in their jurisdiction.
Financial intelligence analysts and investigators
Analysts working transaction monitoring and investigations may find the CPMI's published glossary of payments and market infrastructure terminology useful for interpreting how transactions are structured and settled across systems. Consistent terminology can support clearer communication when documenting or escalating findings, though it does not alter jurisdiction-specific reporting obligations.
Risk and policy professionals monitoring cross-border payments
Those tracking developments in cross-border payments have reason to follow CPMI work, including its taskforce on cross-border payments, as such initiatives can signal direction of travel in market infrastructure design. Any resulting standards would still require adoption and implementation by relevant authorities before they carry legal effect in a given jurisdiction.
Legal and regulatory affairs teams
Legal professionals need to distinguish CPMI recommendations, which are standards rather than law, from binding domestic instruments. When advising on obligations, they should attribute requirements to the correct source and confirm whether and how a specific CPMI standard has been incorporated into the applicable national framework.

Inside CPMI

Standard-Setting Body under the BIS
The CPMI is an international standard-setting body hosted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). It develops standards, guidance, and recommendations rather than binding law; its outputs are typically implemented by member jurisdictions through their own regulatory frameworks.
Focus on Payment, Clearing, and Settlement Systems
The committee's mandate centers on the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing, settlement, and related arrangements, which support the functioning of financial market infrastructures (FMIs).
Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI)
The CPMI, together with the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), is associated with the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures, a set of standards for systemically important FMIs such as payment systems, central securities depositories, securities settlement systems, central counterparties, and trade repositories.
Cross-Border Payments Work
The CPMI contributes analytical and policy work on cross-border payments, including efforts to improve their speed, cost, transparency, and access. This work intersects with financial crime compliance where payment transparency and correspondent banking arrangements are concerned.
Membership of Central Banks and Monetary Authorities
The committee is composed of central banks and monetary authorities from participating jurisdictions, giving it a central-banking rather than a direct AML-supervisory character.

Common questions

Answers to the questions practitioners most commonly ask about CPMI.

Does the CPMI set binding anti-money laundering rules that obliged entities must follow?
No. The CPMI is a standard-setting body hosted by the Bank for International Settlements that focuses on the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing, settlement, and related arrangements. Its outputs are standards, principles, and guidance rather than binding law. AML obligations for obliged entities generally flow from national and regional legal instruments, such as the US Bank Secrecy Act and FinCEN rules, the EU AML Directives and AML Regulation, or the UK Money Laundering Regulations and Proceeds of Crime Act, not directly from CPMI publications. CPMI work may inform how those regimes and their supervisors think about payment-system integrity, but it does not itself impose enforceable AML duties.
Is the CPMI the same as, or a replacement for, the FATF as the global AML standard-setter?
No. The CPMI and the FATF are distinct bodies with different mandates. The FATF sets the international standards on combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing through its Recommendations, which are standards rather than binding law. The CPMI concentrates on the functioning, safety, and efficiency of payment and market infrastructures. The two are not interchangeable, and CPMI materials do not substitute for the FATF Recommendations when assessing AML/CFT expectations. Where their interests intersect, for example, on cross-border payments, their work may be complementary, but they operate independently.
How should a compliance team treat CPMI standards when they are not legally binding in our jurisdiction?
CPMI standards are typically most relevant to payment system operators, financial market infrastructures, and the institutions that participate in them, and their practical force generally depends on how national authorities, central banks, or supervisors adopt or reference them. A compliance team should treat CPMI outputs as authoritative context and good-practice benchmarks rather than as a direct source of AML obligations, and should map any operationally relevant elements back to the specific legal instruments that actually bind the institution. Where a domestic regulator has incorporated or endorsed a CPMI standard, its expectations should be confirmed against that domestic instrument.
Where do CPMI work streams intersect with financial crime compliance in practice?
Intersections tend to arise where payment-system design and integrity affect the ability to detect, deter, and manage financial crime risk, for example, in cross-border payments, messaging standards, and settlement arrangements. Improvements to payment data quality and standardisation can support downstream compliance activities such as sanctions screening and transaction monitoring, but these are enabling factors rather than compliance controls in themselves. Any specific implications for an institution's AML program should be assessed against that institution's applicable regulatory obligations rather than inferred solely from CPMI documents.
Which teams within a financial institution are most likely to engage with CPMI outputs?
Engagement typically falls to payments operations, market infrastructure and settlement teams, treasury, and technology functions responsible for payment messaging and connectivity, often alongside risk and regulatory-affairs teams that track standard-setting developments. Financial crime compliance functions may take an interest where CPMI work touches data standards or cross-border flows relevant to their controls, but they generally rely on the legal and regulatory instruments in force for their actual obligations. Coordination across these functions helps ensure that any operationally relevant CPMI-influenced changes are reflected consistently.
How can a firm keep track of whether a CPMI standard has become operationally relevant to it?
A practical approach is to monitor whether and how domestic authorities, central banks, or supervisors adopt, reference, or incorporate a given CPMI standard, since the operational relevance to a particular firm generally depends on that adoption and on the firm's role in payment or settlement arrangements. Maintaining a horizon-scanning process that links standard-setting developments to the specific legal instruments and supervisory expectations applicable to the firm helps distinguish informational context from actionable requirements. Exact scope and applicability should be confirmed against the relevant regulation or supervisory guidance.

Common misconceptions

The CPMI issues binding rules that obliged entities must follow directly.
The CPMI is a standard-setting body whose principles and guidance are not themselves binding law. They generally take effect only when national authorities or regulators adopt or implement them within their own jurisdictions, and exact obligations should be confirmed against the applicable domestic framework.
The CPMI is an AML/CFT standard-setter comparable to the FATF.
The CPMI's mandate focuses on the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing, and settlement systems, not on setting anti-money laundering or counter-terrorist-financing standards. The FATF sets the recognized AML/CFT standards; CPMI work may be relevant to financial crime compliance indirectly, such as through payment transparency, but the two bodies have distinct roles.
The Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures are a CPMI-only product.
The PFMI are associated with the CPMI working jointly with IOSCO, reflecting a collaboration between payment/central-banking and securities-regulatory perspectives rather than a unilateral CPMI output.

Best practices

Treat CPMI outputs as standards and guidance, and confirm how, and whether, they have been implemented in the specific jurisdiction that applies to your institution before relying on them as requirements.
Distinguish the CPMI's payment-systems and FMI mandate from AML/CFT standard-setting bodies such as the FATF, and map each source instrument to the correct obligation when documenting your compliance framework.
When assessing FMI-related exposure, reference the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures as a CPMI-IOSCO product and consider both the payment-systems and securities-regulatory dimensions it addresses.
Monitor CPMI cross-border payments work where it intersects with payment transparency and correspondent banking, as improvements in speed, cost, transparency, and access can affect the operational context in which financial crime controls operate.
Avoid presenting CPMI principles as guarantees of system integrity; frame them as measures that support the safety and efficiency of payment, clearing, and settlement arrangements rather than as controls that eliminate risk.
Verify any specific standards, thresholds, or implementation details against the applicable regulation and the current CPMI documentation rather than assuming a single uniform global rule.