SWIFT MT structure checkpoint
Check that you can read an MT message: what a BIC identifies, how the message blocks are organized, and what the workhorse fields and message types actually carry.
QUESTIONS AS TEXT
Q1. What does a BIC identify on the SWIFT network?
Answer: B: A financial institution (and optionally a branch), used to address messages to it.
A BIC is an address for an institution: it tells the network where to deliver a message and tells other banks whom they are dealing with. Payment routing is largely a matter of choosing the right chain of BICs, which is why so much reference data work in banks revolves around them.
Q2. An MT message is built from numbered blocks. Where does the business content of a payment — amounts, parties, remittance information — live?
Answer: C: Block 4, the text block, as numbered fields like :20:, :32A:, and :59:.
Blocks 1 and 2 handle addressing and message typing, block 3 carries optional user data such as the end-to-end reference, block 4 holds the business payload as tagged fields, and block 5 is the trailer. When payment analysts talk about 'field 59' or 'field 32A', they are always reading block 4.
Q3. This fragment comes from a fictional MT103. What does field :32A: tell you?
Answer: A: The value date (12 July 2026), the currency (EUR), and the interbank settlement amount (12,500.00).
Field 32A packs three facts into one line: value date in YYMMDD form, the ISO currency code, and the amount with a comma as the decimal separator. It states the interbank settlement amount — which, under SHA charging, is not always what the beneficiary finally receives. All parties and account numbers in this excerpt are fictional.
Q4. A corporate treasurer wants Meridian Bank, which holds the company's account, to execute a payment — but the instruction is being sent through a different bank that services the corporate's SWIFT connectivity. Which message type carries this request for transfer?
Answer: A: MT101
MT101 is the request-for-transfer: an instruction asking the account-servicing bank to debit the ordering customer's account and pay. Once Meridian Bank acts on it, the resulting interbank payment typically travels as an MT103. Keeping the request and the execution apart makes the corporate-to-bank and bank-to-bank legs much easier to reason about.
Q5. What is the difference between an MT910 and an MT940?
Answer: A: MT910 confirms a single credit to an account; MT940 is a statement reporting the account's entries and balances.
The MT9xx family reports rather than instructs. An MT910 tells the account owner 'you have been credited' shortly after it happens, which supports intraday monitoring; an MT940 delivers the fuller statement used for end-of-day reconciliation. Nostro reconciliation teams live in these messages.