Correspondent banks can be really difficult. They are legally obliged to verify every payment to combat money laundering and other criminal activities. If your payment is blocked for manual verification at a correspondent bank, it can easily take up to a month to release it. But what if there are 2 correspondents/intermediaries in between? Or maybe 3? Or even 4? Sometimes, bank chains can be very long in cross-border payments.

The interbank communication process is not optimal. To verify your payment, the bank must see the supporting documents. But the documents are not attached to the MT103 form, so the bank has to ask for them. The request will go through the entire chain of banks to the sender’s bank (or in some cases to the recipient’s bank). Often, documents need to be emailed, so it’s really easy to lose them and keep you waiting.

The best solution is to send payments through the shortest chain of banks. If you can select the bank you’re sending the payment from or if the recipient can provide options, we recommend using the SOWSOF Route Planner before sending the payment.

How does it work?

You select the sender’s bank, the recipient’s bank, and the currency. The service requests Standard Settlement Instructions from each bank and builds the initial route.

Click on the sender and recipient correspondents to make sure there are no intermediary banks. So, for the above payment, if you send USD from Bakai Bank to Hipotekarna, there will be 3 banks in the middle. That’s a lot!

Can we use other currencies? Yes, under each bank we can see the list of supported currencies: CNY, EUR, KZT, RUB, USD.

Don’t settle for the first option available. For example, for the above payment, if you try EUR as a currency, you will see that these 2 banks share a single correspondent bank – Landersbank (SOLADEST). It’s a perfect solution!

It’s important to mention that the service doesn’t provide recording capabilities yet, so don’t forget to take screenshots between each route creation. Also, use a laptop to work with the Route Planner.

How can we influence the SWIFT payment journey?

Well, if there is a single bank between the sender’s bank and the recipient’s bank, we know the journey. But if there are several options, can we decide which correspondent bank the payment will be sent through?

Yes and no. Often, we can manually select the beneficiary’s corresponding bank. If you don’t see this field in your mobile app, try the WEB version of online banking. If you can’t see it there either, you can go to the bank branch if you have one in your city.

But, to be clear, we can hardly influence the sender’s correspondent bank. Unless it shares one with the beneficiary’s bank.

SOWSOF Route Planner is the best way to check the banks’ Standard Settlement Instructions and build the most optimal route before sending the SWIFT transfer. It’s easier to prevent the problem, so check the route before any new cross-border payments.