Bank file formats explained
Plain-English reference guides to the statement formats your accounting software imports — what they are, how they're structured, and which packages read them.
A plain-text SWIFT message that carries a single bank account statement — the de-facto import format for European bookkeeping software.
Read the reference →The ISO 20022 XML bank statement — the modern, structured successor to MT940 used across SEPA and PSD2.
Read the reference →Bank statements travel between banks and accounting software in a handful of standard file formats. The two that matter most for European bookkeeping are MT940, the long-standing SWIFT plain-text statement, and CAMT.053, its modern ISO 20022 XML successor. Knowing which your software expects is the difference between a clean import and a rejected file.
Each guide below breaks the format down field by field, with an annotated example and a list of the bookkeeping packages that accept it. If your bank only gives you a PDF, BankFormats converts it to clean Excel or CSV.
Working from a PDF statement? Convert it to Excel or CSV with PDF to Excel, PDF to CSV or by bank.