SWIFT provides a network to allow financial and non-financial institution(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 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.
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:
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
ISO 20022 MX