SWIFT:Message Types
Encyclopedia
SWIFT
or Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication provides a network to allow financial and non-financial institutions (e.g. corporates) to transfer financial transactions through a 'financial message'.
Currently SWIFT's network can support the following message standards:
All SWIFT messages include the literal "MT" (Message Type). This is followed by a 3-digit number that denotes the message type, category, and group. Consider the following example, which is an order to buy or sell via a third party:
The first digit (3) represents the category. A category denotes messages that relate to particular financial instruments or services such as Precious Metals (6), Treasury (3), or Travelers Cheques (8). The category denoted by 3 is Treasury Markets.
The second digit (0) represents a group of related parts in a transaction life cycle. The group indicated by 0 is a Financial Institution Transfer.
The third digit (4) is the type that denotes the specific message. There are several hundred message types across the categories. The type represented by 4 is a notification.
Overview of SWIFT MT Categories:
Message Types are different in their structure than the SWIFT MT, the naming convention remains the same. The following example will illustrate:
As with SWIFT MTs, the first digit (3) denotes the category. As above, this denotes Treasury Markets.
As with SWIFT MTs, the second digit (0) represents a group of related parts in a transaction life cycle. The group indicated by 0 is a Financial Institution Transfer.
Finally, the third digit (7) denotes the specific message. In this case, similar to the MT 304, the 7 denotes ‘Notification’. The SWIFT MT 304 and the ISO 15022 MT 307 are equal but were created for different financial groups using different standards.
These messages are generated using MessagePro.
syntax, which is more flexible and easier to implement than the previous generation of message types (MT). These message types are developed in accordance with ISO 20022
standard.
Current syntax is as following: xxxx.nnn.aaa.bb
— xxxx is an alphabetic code in four positions (fixed length) identifying the Business Process,
— nnn is an alphanumeric code in three positions (fixed length) identifying the Message Functionality,
— aaa is a numeric code in three positions (fixed length) identifying a particular flavour (variant) of Message Functionality,
— bb is a numeric code in two positions (fixed length) identifying the version, and
Consider the following example:
TREA.001.001.02
SWIFT Standards for MX Messages:
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication operates a worldwide financial messaging network which exchanges messages between banks and other financial institutions...
or Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication provides a network to allow financial and non-financial institutions (e.g. corporates) to transfer financial transactions through a 'financial message'.
Currently SWIFT's network can support the following message standards:
SWIFT MT
SWIFT messages, developed by SWIFT Standards, consist of five blocks of data including three headers, message content, and a trailer. Message types are crucial to identifying content.All SWIFT messages include the literal "MT" (Message Type). This is followed by a 3-digit number that denotes the message type, category, and group. Consider the following example, which is an order to buy or sell via a third party:
- Example MT304
The first digit (3) represents the category. A category denotes messages that relate to particular financial instruments or services such as Precious Metals (6), Treasury (3), or Travelers Cheques (8). The category denoted by 3 is Treasury Markets.
The second digit (0) represents a group of related parts in a transaction life cycle. The group indicated by 0 is a Financial Institution Transfer.
The third digit (4) is the type that denotes the specific message. There are several hundred message types across the categories. The type represented by 4 is a notification.
Overview of SWIFT MT Categories:
| Message Type | Description |
|---|---|
| MT0xx | System Messages |
| MT1xx | Customer Payments and Cheques |
| MT2xx | Financial Institution Transfers |
| MT3xx | Treasury Markets |
| MT4xx | Collection and Cash Letters |
| MT5xx | Securities Markets |
| MT6xx | Treasury Markets - Metals and Syndications |
| MT7xx | Documentary Credits and Guarantees |
| MT8xx | Travellers Cheques |
| MT9xx | Cash Management and Customer Status |
ISO 15022 MT
Although ISO 15022ISO 15022
ISO 15022 is an ISO standard for messaging used in securities trading. Participants in the financial industry need a common representation of the financial transactions they perform and this standard defines general message schema, which in turn are used by organizations to define messages in a...
Message Types are different in their structure than the SWIFT MT, the naming convention remains the same. The following example will illustrate:
- Example. MT 307
As with SWIFT MTs, the first digit (3) denotes the category. As above, this denotes Treasury Markets.
As with SWIFT MTs, the second digit (0) represents a group of related parts in a transaction life cycle. The group indicated by 0 is a Financial Institution Transfer.
Finally, the third digit (7) denotes the specific message. In this case, similar to the MT 304, the 7 denotes ‘Notification’. The SWIFT MT 304 and the ISO 15022 MT 307 are equal but were created for different financial groups using different standards.
These messages are generated using MessagePro.
ISO 20022 MX
A new message type expressed in XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
syntax, which is more flexible and easier to implement than the previous generation of message types (MT). These message types are developed in accordance with ISO 20022
ISO 20022
ISO 20022 or UNIFI is the ISO Standard for Financial Services Messaging. It describes a Metadata Repository containing descriptions of messages and business processes, and a maintenance process for the Repository Content....
standard.
Current syntax is as following: xxxx.nnn.aaa.bb
— xxxx is an alphabetic code in four positions (fixed length) identifying the Business Process,
— nnn is an alphanumeric code in three positions (fixed length) identifying the Message Functionality,
— aaa is a numeric code in three positions (fixed length) identifying a particular flavour (variant) of Message Functionality,
— bb is a numeric code in two positions (fixed length) identifying the version, and
Consider the following example:
TREA.001.001.02
- TREA refers to ‘Treasury’
- 001 refers to ‘NDF opening (notification)’
- 001 refers to the variant
- 02 refers to the version message format, in this case version 2 of ‘NDF opening’ type.
SWIFT Standards for MX Messages:
| MX Identifier | Description |
|---|---|
| acmt.xxx.xxx.xx | Account Management |
| admi.xxx.xxx.xx | Administration |
| camt.xxx.xxx.xx | Cash Management |
| defp.xxx.xxx.xx | Derivatives |
| pacs.xxx.xxx.xx | Payments Clearing and Settlement |
| pain.xxx.xxx.xx | Payments Initiation |
| reda.xxx.xxx.xx | Reference Data |
| seev.xxx.xxx.xx | Securities Events |
| semt.xxx.xxx.xx | Securities Management |
| sese.xxx.xxx.xx | Securities Settlement |
| setr.xxx.xxx.xx | Securities Trade |
| trea.xxx.xxx.xx | Treasury |
| tsmt.xxx.xxx.xx | Trade Services Management |
See also
- SWIFTSociety for Worldwide Interbank Financial TelecommunicationThe Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication operates a worldwide financial messaging network which exchanges messages between banks and other financial institutions...
- Delivery versus paymentDelivery versus payment"Payment at the moment of delivery".Delivery versus payment or DVP is a sale transaction of negotiable securities that can be instructed to a settlement agent using SWIFT Message Type MT 543...
- OCMTOCMTOCMT is an abbreviation which stands for Original currency and amount. This is a term used for payments between banks.It is a SWIFT standard code Word part of MT 202. These are messages, which are exchanged between banks after the SWIFT standard....
(Original currency and amount)