Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
Definition
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a cooperative utility whose objective is to develop standardized messaging and processing of transaction services for financial institutions globally, making global cross-border transfers easier.
Swift is the network backbone of the international finance industry. It serves more than 200 countries and territories. Swift payments are a type of international transfer sent via the Swift network. Swift does not facilitate the transfer of funds. Instead, it sends payment orders via its secure and reliable network, which must be then settled by the correspondent accounts that institutions have with each other. When sending or receiving international payments, a Swift code is used to identify a specific bank.
List of Standards
- Category 1 - Customer Payments & Cheques (MT100 - MT199)
- Category 2 - Financial Insitution Transfers (MT200 - MT299)
- Category 3 - Treasury Markets Foreign Exchange, Money Markets & Derivatives (MT300 - MT399)
- Category 4 - Collections & Cash Letters
- Category 5 - Securities Markets (MT500 - MT599)
- Category 6 - Treasury Markets Precious Metals / Syndications (MT600 - MT699)
- Category 7 - Documetary Credits & Guarantees (MT700 - MT799)
- Category 8 - Travellers Cheques (MT800 - MT899)
- Category 9 - Cash Management & Customer Status (MT900 - MT999)
- Category n - Common Group Messages (MTn90 - MTn99)
