The banking industry looks likely to have five years to manage the transition to the ISO 20022 messaging standards in the Australian payments system.A responses and options paper jointly prepared by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Payments Council sets the scene for a mammoth project that will build on the New Payments Platform and learn from the NPP's disjointed introduction over the last two years.The analysis in the options paper follows an issues paper released in April. The RBA and APC said their objective is to "assist the industry reach consensus regarding the adoption of ISO 20022.A Conclusions Paper is expected to be published in the first half of 2020.Respondents "were unanimous in acknowledging the need for certain parts of the Australian payments system to migrate to ISO 20022," the options paper said."Around 70 per cent of respondents were confident that the migration could be completed by 2024."Among other key themes are:•    participants "are looking for opportunities to consolidate the number of payments clearing systems currently supported by the industry";•    there is "a preference for incorporating a coexistence phase rather than a 'big bang' migration", while he migration should initially be on a like-for-like basis, followed by the compulsory adoption of enhanced ISO 20022 content; and•    there is little or no support for the migration of cheque, direct entry  or card clearings to ISO 20022 -  the general industry view is that cheques will soon be retired and NPP will most likely replace DE in the longer term.