What is SWIFT messages flow for international transfer?

2008-10-31

The SWIFT thing only transfers INFORMATION about money.

The money transfer takes place some other way.

SWIFT messages provide enough information for the receiver institution of the money to know what to do with that money.

There are 2 ways to send that "enough" information, because of the "corresponding" notion for financial institutions.

When the source bank does not have a "direct" connection to destination bank it has to go through some corresponding banks.

(what happened to me: sending USD from one EU Bank to another EU BANK: ING-RO to DB-UK needs to go ING-RO -> JP-US -> DB-US -> DB-UK, because ING's corresponding bank for USD is JP and DB-UK's corresponding bank for USD seems to be DB-US - also guess that USA loves USD info to pass through USA)

MT103 has all information about source and destination, with all details.

MT202 only has information about source's and destination's banks and refers the MT103 (MT202 Field 21-Related Reference- has to be equal to MT103 Field 20-Transaction Reference Number). (MT202 with Field 21 equal to it's own Field 20 is special for inter-bank transfers, no customers involved.) So, the 2 usual flows would look like:

Source ------|--> Corresp --|--> ...... --|--> Corresp --|--> Destination

F1. MT103 ------------------------------------------------------->

F1. MT202 --|--> MT202 ---|--> ...... --|--> MT202 ----|-->

F2. MT103 --|--> MT103 ---|--> ...... --|--> MT103 ----|-->

(ansi graphics still best) Some FREE resources i found (www.swift.com charges for the handbook): * EU: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/glotax/currtax/2005/11euimplement.pdf * Canada: http://www.cdnpay.ca/publications/pdfs_publications/prd_002.pdf * HK: http://hkieb.com/download/HKIEB%20-%20E-Payment%20in%20HK_20040827.pdf * Switzerland: http://www.ubs.com/1/ShowMedia/bank_for_banks/offering/securities/processing?contentId=28371&name=SWIFT_ForGuiMee_e4GzD.pdf * Many: http://www.bis.org/publ/cpss53.pdf * US anti money laundering: http://www.roberthalfmr.com/External_Sites/downloads/RHMR/rhmr-us/RHMR_Link/financial_reporting/ProtivitiAMLFAQGuidev2.pdf

See also: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_can_you_find_a_list_of_Swift_Message_Types_and_formats