Access comprehensive information about correspondent banks and their relationships for efficient cross-border payments
Most cross-border payments go via correspondent and/or intermediary banks
Most of cross-border payments go via correspondent and/or intermediary banks. They are required to build a trust and transfer funds between two banks which don't have direct relations.
A correspondent bank is a third-party financial institution that acts as a go-between for domestic and foreign banks that need to conduct cross-border payments with each other.
There could be more than one bank involved between sender's bank and beneficiary's. The basic rule of safe SWIFT transfers - the more banks in a chain, more potential problems could happen.
Swift Tracer has an access to a database of correspondent banks. You can find sender's or beneficiary's bank by a swift/bic code and request a list of their correspondent accounts.
Establishing new correspondent relations is very challenging for banks, so normally they value them and try to prevent de-risking catastrophe by establishing procedures for due diligence of each cross-border payment and overall KYC/KYB procedures.
You can order correspondent bank information directly on the bank's page
ABNANL2A
Dutch multinational banking and financial services company
BPKOPLPW
Poland's largest universal bank offering comprehensive financial services
CITIDEFF
German subsidiary of Citigroup providing international banking services
The list of correspondent banks (nostro accounts) is part of SSI instructions. Sometimes they are published on the official bank's website. Banks normally find it via SWIFTref - a non-public database of correspondent relations.
Understanding the flow of cross-border payments through correspondent banks
The sender's bank creates an MT103 SWIFT message and sends it to their correspondent bank that holds a nostro account in the destination currency. This correspondent bank acts as the first intermediary in the payment chain.
The correspondent bank receives the MT103 message, conducts compliance screening (AML/Sanctions checks), verifies payment details, and either processes the payment directly to the beneficiary's bank or forwards it to another correspondent bank if no direct relationship exists.
If multiple intermediary banks are needed, each bank processes the payment sequentially, debiting the previous correspondent's nostro account and crediting the next one's account, until reaching a bank with a direct relationship to the beneficiary's bank.
The final correspondent bank or beneficiary's bank receives the funds, conducts final compliance checks, and credits the beneficiary's account. The entire payment chain is tracked through SWIFT messaging, with each bank providing settlement confirmation.
Get access to our comprehensive database of correspondent relations and streamline your cross-border payments