What are SWIFT payments?

Many people who are forced to send foreign currency transfers from time to time to foreign counterparties often face the problem of choosing a reliable intermediary. Services in this area are quite popular, such as Western Union or MoneyMoney. Among the huge amount of information about various banking products, a concept such as SWIFT translation is quite common. What is it and who can use this service? Understanding this issue is not so difficult. Let's try to do it together.

Definitions

So what is SWIFT? This abbreviation hides one of the leading international systems that is used to make interbank payments, as well as financial information messaging. If you translate the full name into Russian, you get the "Community of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications."

In 1973, when this system was organized, about 240 financial institutions from 15 countries of the world took part in it. Today, the list of participants includes more than 10 thousand corporations, covering more than 210 countries. The central office of the organization is in Brussels.

Today, SWIFT's translation system is more than 1,000,000 daily transactions. More than 2.5 billion money transfers go through this payment system annually. Each participant in this extensive system is assigned a unique code, which is a special identifier for translations.

Today, the answer to the question: “What is SWIFT?” Banks, stock exchanges, investment companies, brokerage agencies, mutual funds, securities companies and ordinary citizens who have long appreciated all the advantages of the system know for sure.

Who usually uses the service?

So what is SWIFT translation? For an ordinary citizen, this abbreviation means, first of all, the quick delivery of funds to their destination. Most often, this service is used in such cases:

• when you need to pay for any goods / services purchased abroad;
• there is a need to transfer somewhere a large amount, without spending a lot of time and effort on it;
• no desire to open a separate bank account for transfers;
• I want to send a foreign currency transfer from abroad to relatives, relatives or just acquaintances.

Despite the fact that money transfers through other systems are also quite popular, SWIFT payments in many cases turn out to be much more convenient and faster. With their help, you can quickly and easily pay for a whole range of diverse services.

pros

To better understand what a SWIFT payment is, let's talk a little about the advantages of this system. You can call, for example, these:

1. Efficiency Translation can take from half an hour to two to three days.
2. Unlimited amount. The size of the transfer can only be influenced by applicable law.
3. A variety of currencies and amounts that can be operated on.
4. High privacy payments.
5. Favorable commission rates.
6. Extensive geography. Today, there is practically no country in which such a transfer could not be made.
7. Clear delivery times. You must immediately inform when the transfer is at the recipient. If you are able to prove that you have suffered losses due to violation of the terms of the transfer, they will be covered by SWIFT.

Minuses

Considering the question of what SWIFT is, one cannot but mention the disadvantages. True, they are minimal:

• since some countries or individual banks may set their own fees, sometimes they are too high;
• if the transfer currency is different from the receiving currency, a long chain of intermediary banks can also increase the cost of the service;
• in some cases, a fee is charged from both the recipient and the sender;
• the duration of the operation is sometimes unreasonably high (but most often does not exceed several hours).

How to send money?

What is SWIFT money transfer, you already understood. Now let's talk about how to use the service and what is needed for this.

First of all, you need to know exactly the full details of the recipient. They consist of several items:

• name and Swift code of the receiving financial institution;
• name and Swift code of the correspondent bank, if any;
• the account number of the person receiving the funds;
• bank transit account number if the recipient does not have a personal account; in this case, you must also indicate the surname, name of the addressee, as well as his full passport data.

Attention! All data must be in English. To avoid mistakes, it is best to use the scanned option that the seller will give you.

If everything is in order with the details of the recipient, then in order to use the service, you need:

• apply to a banking institution (almost any) that provides such a service;
• decide on the method of sending the payment (through or without an account);
• present a civil passport or a replacement document;
• carefully fill in the details of the recipient or provide a scan copy with this data;
• make the necessary transfer amount and pay a commission fee.

Tip: if you plan to often use the service of SWIFT transfers, it is best to open a permanent account, so you can save on commissions.

How to get such a transfer?

Now let's figure out how to get money sent in a similar way. This is nothing complicated. To get started, contact the manager of your bank branch and make sure that the funds are transferred to your account or to the bank’s transit account. If you know how to use the Internet banking system and your financial institution provides a similar service, you can do it yourself, in your personal account.

Now you need to personally visit the bank branch, present your passport, pay a withdrawal fee (if it has not been withdrawn automatically) and collect your money.

If the transfer amount is too large, it would be more advisable to order it in advance. Banks do not always have a sufficient amount of currency to issue.

How much does it cost to use the service?

Unfortunately, it is impossible to give a definite answer to this question. The fact is that this will depend on exactly what amount you are going to transfer and how many intermediary banks will participate in the operation.

If you need to transfer a small amount in the range of 100-200 US dollars, using the system is absolutely not profitable. For this purpose, it is better to use the services of systems such as MoneyGram or Western Union. In this case, the bank fee will be much lower. You will pay only 10-15 dollars, while you will have to pay all fifty for a SWIFT translation.

But if you need to send an amount in excess of $ 1000, the commission will be no more than $ 20. A progressive system works here: the larger the translation, the lower the commission. For example, for transferring over 10 thousand American money you will have to pay no more than a hundred. While other systems will require at least three hundred from you.

To save even more on banking services, the sender and the recipient should open current accounts. If you use SWIFT transfers regularly, the savings can be substantial.

Conclusion

Since now you know exactly what SWIFT is, and you will probably use such a service in the future, I would like to give a little advice. Always pay attention to the services of which bank you plan to use. The fact is that the larger the financial institution, the more foreign partner banks it has.the length of the chain of transfers from the sender to the addressee will depend on this. This means that the cost of the shipment itself - the shorter the chain, the cheaper the commission and the faster the delivery time.

Based on the foregoing, we can safely say that the SWIFT payment system is one of the most reliable and in demand today. It not only guarantees fast and high-quality money delivery, but also provides a high level of transaction secrecy. Every year, the SWIFT network is becoming wider, and bank connections are becoming more reliable. All this makes the SWIFT payment system even more popular.