Signalling messages in an Internet Protocol, IP, communications network comprising a chain of at least two entities (21; 23; 29) applying object oriented processing (22; 28; 42) of signalling messages are exchanged between the at least two entities (21; 23; 29) of the IP communications network comprising object oriented based data items. Parsing and inverse parsing of text based signalling messages are effectively avoided, thereby reducing system resources and increasing processing speed of the system as a whole.