SWIFT Messages
What Is SWIFT & Why We Use In This Platform
SWIFT is an acronym which stands for ‘Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications’. Formed in 1973, SWIFT is a Belgian creation, and its main offices are still in Belgium to this day. SWIFT was formed in response to a growing need for an internationally sound communications network that could facilitate business transactions across borders effectively, quickly, and securely.
SWIFT has grown to be a worldwide organization which facilitates communications between banks, corporations, and securities institutions. SWIFT communications are now the global standard for international banking transactions, and as such are utilized millions of times daily. It is estimated that more than eight thousand banking institutions currently use the SWIFT messaging system for their transactions, and SWIFT systems are now in place in two hundred and eight countries. What has made SWIFT so very effective? SWIFT’s success has primarily been the result of understanding and responding to the unique demands of a global market. The SWIFT system utilizes standardized messages, which increase efficiency, and is fully automated, which means that the days of lost messages are all but over. International transactions depend on security, reliability, and accuracy. The SWIFT system provides all these elements. In addition to providing a safe and secure messaging system for the financial world, SWIFT also provides opportunities for companies to build revenue streams, and offers a wide range of services outside the messaging field. Some of these services include directories, market information, and market solutions.
SWIFT Codes are actually very easy to understand, in spite of their unfathomable appearance. The ‘MT’ at the beginning of the code stands for ‘Message Type’, and the number indicates one of the many standardized message formats which comprise the SWIFT messaging system. The MT-799 The MT-799 is a free format SWIFT message type in which a banking institution confirms that funds are in place to cover a potential trade. This can, on occasion, be used as an irrevocable undertaking, depending on the language used in the MT-799, but is not a promise to pay or any form of bank guarantee in its standard format. The function of the MT-799 is simply to assure the seller that the buyer does have the necessary funds to complete the trade. The MT-799 is usually issued before a contract is signed and before a letter of credit or bank guarantee is issued. After the MT-799 has been received by the seller’s bank, it is then normally the responsibility of the seller’s bank to send a POP (proof of product) to the buyer’s bank, at which point the trade continues towards commencement.
Since the MT799 is free format, banks can easily send many various types of messages to other banks before funds, a guarantee, or letter of credit is sent via SWIFT.
Banks have many uses for the MT799 message including:
Proof of Funds Letters (POF)
Ready Willing and Able Letters (RWA)
Pre-advice Letters
BPU – Bank Payment Undertaking (Please Note: ICBPO (Irrevocable Conditional Bank Pay Orders) are now banned and have been made illegal by most governments. BG and SBLC Issuers that continue to ask for ICBPOs as payment are completely out of touch by seeking a form of financial payment that has been made illegal in most countries.
SWIFT for Electronic Funds Transfers
Behind most international money and security transfers is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. SWIFT is a vast messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions.
Every day, nearly 10,000 SWIFT member institutions send approximately 24 million messages on the network.
Inside a SWIFT Transaction
SWIFT is a messaging network that financial institutions use to securely transmit information and instructions through a standardized system of codes.
SWIFT assigns each financial organization a unique code that has either eight characters or 11 characters. The code is interchangeably called the bank identifier code (BIC), SWIFT code, SWIFT ID, or ISO 9362 code.
As powerful as SWIFT is, keep in mind that it is only a messaging system – SWIFT does not hold any funds or securities, nor does it manage client accounts.
The World Before SWIFT
Prior to SWIFT, Telex was the only available means of message confirmation for international funds transfer. Telex was hampered by low speed, security concerns, and a free message format--in other words, Telex did not have a unified system of codes like SWIFT to name banks and describe transactions. Telex senders had to describe every transaction in sentences which were then interpreted and executed by the receiver. This led to many human errors.
To circumvent these problems, the SWIFT system was formed in 1974. Seven major international banks formed a cooperative society to operate a global network that would transfer financial messages in a secure and timely manner.
Why is SWIFT Dominant?
Within three years of introduction, SWIFT membership had increased to 230 banks across five countries. Although there are other message services like Fedwire, Ripple, and CHIPS, SWIFT continues to retain its dominant position in the market. Its success is attributed to how it continually adds new message codes to transmit different financial transactions.
While SWIFT started primarily for simple payment instructions, it now sends messages for a wide variety of actions, including security transactions and treasury transactions. Nearly 50% of SWIFT traffic is still for payment-based messages, but 43% now concern security transactions, and the remaining traffic flows to treasury transactions.
Who Uses SWIFT?
In the beginning, SWIFT founders designed the network to facilitate communication about Treasury and correspondent transactions only. The robustness of the message format design allowed huge scalability through which SWIFT gradually expanded to provide services to the following:
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Banks
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Brokerage Institutes and Trading Houses
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Securities Dealers
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Asset Management Companies
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Clearing Houses
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Depositories
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Exchanges
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Corporate Business Houses
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Treasury Market Participants and Service Providers
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Foreign Exchange and Money Brokers
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Services Offered by SWIFT
The SWIFT system offers many services that assist businesses and individuals to complete seamless and accurate business transactions. Some of the services offered include:
a) Applications
SWIFT connections enable access to a variety of applications, which include real-time instruction matching for treasury and forex transactions, banking market infrastructure for processing payment instructions between banks, and securities market infrastructure for processing clearing and settlement instructions for payments, securities, forex, and derivatives transactions.
b) Business Intelligence
SWIFT has recently introduced dashboards and reporting utilities which enable the clients to get a dynamic, real-time view of monitoring the messages, activity, trade flow, and reporting. The reports enable filtering based on region, country, message types, and related parameters.
c) Compliance Services
Aimed at services around financial crime compliance, SWIFT offers reporting and utilities like Know Your Customer (KYC), Sanctions, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML).
d) Messaging, Connectivity, and Software Solutions
The core of SWIFT business resides in providing a secure, reliable, and scalable network for the smooth movement of messages. Through its various messaging hubs, software, and network connections, SWIFT offers multiple products and services which enable its end clients to send and receive transactional messages.
How Does SWIFT Make Money?
SWIFT is a cooperative society owned by its members. Members are categorized into classes based on share ownership. All members pay a one-time joining fee plus annual support charges which vary by member classes. SWIFT also charges users for each message based on message type and length. These charges also vary depending upon the bank’s usage volume – different charge tiers exist for banks that generate different volumes of messages.
In addition, SWIFT has launched additional services. These are backed by the long history of data maintained by SWIFT. These include business intelligence, reference data, and compliance services and offer other income streams for SWIFT.
Challenges for SWIFT
The majority of SWIFT clients have huge transactional volumes for which manual entry of instructions is not practical. The need for automation for SWIFT message creation, processing, and transmission is growing. However, this comes at a cost and operational overhead. Although SWIFT has been successful in providing software for the same, that too comes at a cost. SWIFT may need to tap into these problem areas for the majority of its client base. Automated solutions within this space may bring in a new stream of income for SWIFT and keep clients engaged in the long run.
SWIFT has retained its dominant position in the global processing of transactional messages. It has recently forayed into other areas, such as offering reporting utilities and data for business intelligence, which indicates its willingness to remain innovative. In the short- to mid-term, SWIFT seems poised to continue dominating the market.