The pacs family: interbank messages

IN ONE LINE

Analogy: if the pain.001 was the customer's order slip, pacs messages are the freight documents exchanged between transport companies.

The customer never sees them, but they do the actual moving.

A pacs.008 is a parcel with a customer's goods inside — the paperwork names the real sender and the real recipient.

A pacs.009 is a container one transport company sends to another for its own business — sometimes as the "cover" that pays for a parcel travelling separately by a different route.

A pacs.002 is the status slip: "accepted" or "refused at the depot".

And a pacs.004 is the returned parcel, coming back with a note explaining why it could not be delivered.

WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS

pacs stands for payments clearing and settlement: the interbank space.

pacs.008 is the FI-to-FI customer credit transfer — an underlying customer is being paid, so full debtor and creditor detail travels with it.

pacs.009 is the financial institution credit transfer: banks moving money between themselves, either settling their own obligations or providing cover for a customer payment routed separately (the COV usage, which embeds the underlying customer details so intermediaries can screen them).

pacs.002 is the FI-to-FI payment status report, carrying accepts and rejects.

pacs.004 is the payment return, which moves already-settled funds back toward where they came from, with a reason code attached.

HOW IT WORKS

Practitioners map these to the MT world: pacs.008 does the job of the MT103, pacs.009 that of the MT202, and pacs.009 COV that of the MT202 COV.

The differences matter, though.

A pacs.008 distinguishes the instructed amount from the interbank settlement amount, so deducted charges are visible rather than inferred.

Agents are explicit named roles — instructing, instructed, previous, and intermediary agents — instead of position-coded fields.

A UETR travels end to end for tracking.

Status handling also differs by rail: in an instant payment scheme, the pacs.002 is the make-or-break accept or reject within seconds; in correspondent banking, a negative pacs.002 is a reject before settlement, while a pacs.004 unwinds a payment after settlement.

Reject and return are different events with different accounting.

THE WORDS

pacs family

The ISO 20022 message family exchanged between financial institutions to clear and settle payments.

pacs.008

The ISO 20022 interbank message that carries a customer credit transfer from one financial institution to another.

pacs.009

The ISO 20022 interbank message for a financial-institution credit transfer, including the cover (COV) variant used to settle a customer payment.

pacs.002

The ISO 20022 status report a financial institution sends to say whether it accepted or rejected a payment message it received.

pacs.004

The ISO 20022 message that sends a settled payment back to the sender, referencing the original transaction and carrying a reason code.

READ FIRST

• The ISO 20022 message model
• Clearing versus settlement

CONNECTED TO

• FLOW SEPA Credit Transfer
• FLOW CBPR+ cross-border transfer (pacs.008)
• FLOW CBPR+ corporate payment — full MX lifecycle
• pacs.008 pacs.008 — FI to FI Customer Credit Transfer
• pacs.009 pacs.009 — Financial Institution Credit Transfer
• pacs.002 pacs.002 — FI to FI Payment Status Report
• pacs.004 pacs.004 — Payment Return
• pacs.007 pacs.007 — FI-to-FI Payment Reversal
• pacs.028 pacs.028 — FI-to-FI Payment Status Request
• CHECKPOINT pain, pacs, and camt checkpoint
• COMPARE MT103 vs pacs.008
• COMPARE MX vs MT corporate payment lifecycle

SOURCES

• ISO 20022 Catalogue of messages — ISO 20022 Registration Authority
• Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) usage guidelines — Swift (CBPR+ working group)
• Payments Signal editorial teaching models — Payments Signal