Two different underlying formats
MT940 is a SWIFT text format that predates CAMT.053 by decades. It represents a statement as a series of numbered tags — :20: for a reference, :25: for the account, :60F: and :62F: for opening and closing balances, and one or more :61: lines for transactions, often paired with a :86: line for the description. It is compact, line-based and was designed to be transmitted as plain text.
CAMT.053 is newer, part of the ISO 20022 standard, and is written in XML. It is the ISO 20022 counterpart of MT940 — the end-of-day account statement — just as camt.052 corresponds to the intraday MT942 report. Instead of short numbered tags, it uses named, nested elements — an entry might contain a transaction-code block describing the transaction category, or a details section listing the underlying transactions of a batched entry. The same kind of information appears in both formats, but it is organized very differently on the page.
How much detail each one carries
Because CAMT.053 was designed more recently and for a broader range of use cases, it can carry more structured detail than MT940 — for example, separate booking and value dates for each entry, or remittance information broken into distinct fields rather than a single free-text block. MT940's :86: field often holds similar information, but as bank-specific subfields packed into one string that a human (or a converter) has to interpret.
That doesn't make MT940 unsuitable — it reliably carries the fields most reconciliation workflows need: dates, amounts, balances and a description. The richer structure of CAMT.053 mainly matters when you need machine-readable detail beyond that, such as separating a batched entry into its individual underlying transactions.
Why you'll encounter both
Neither format has fully replaced the other. Many European banks still offer MT940 for compatibility with existing treasury and accounting systems, alongside CAMT.053 as the newer ISO 20022 option. Which one you get from your bank often depends on the export tool or online banking portal you use rather than a deliberate choice, so it's common to work with both formats across different accounts or banks.
Bankfile supports both
Bankfile converts both formats to CSV or Excel using the same normalized transaction model, so the output looks the same regardless of which one you started with: consistent columns for dates, amounts, descriptions and currency. Conversion happens locally in your browser for both formats — the file is never uploaded.