pacs.009 ISO 20022 message

pacs.009 ISO 20022 message: Definition

pacs.009 ISO 20022 message stands for “Financial Institution Credit Transfer” (FICreditTransfer). It is the ISO 20022 XML format for credit transfers in which both the ordering party and the beneficiary are a credit institution (or a payment service provider) – i.e. for pure bank-to-bank payments without any customer involvement.

pacs.009 ISO 20022 message: Scope

Whereas the pacs.008 ISO 20022 message carries a customer payment between two banks (the debtor and the creditor are customers), the pacs.009 transfers an amount from the account of one bank to the account of another bank. Here, the debtor and the creditor are financial institutions themselves. The pacs.009 is therefore the MX equivalent of the MT202 and MT202 COV in the SWIFT MT standard.

Typical use cases are liquidity transfers between banks, the settlement of money market and foreign exchange transactions, payments to central banks and clearing houses, and cover payments for customer payments routed via correspondent banks.

The pacs.009 comes in three variants:

• pacs.009 CORE – the actual bank-to-bank credit transfer.
• pacs.009 COV – cover payment: it carries the cover for a pacs.008 exchanged directly between the banks in parallel and therefore contains the details of the underlying customer credit transfer.
• pacs.009 ADV – advice: pure notification of a payment without any settlement effect.

The following associated ISO 20022 messages refer to the pacs.009:

• pacs.002 ISO 20022 message – status report (acceptance/rejection)
• camt.056 ISO 20022 message – recall
• pacs.004 ISO 20022 message – return
• camt.029 ISO 20022 message – rejection of a recall
• camt.054 ISO 20022 message – debit/credit notification to the account holder

pacs.009 ISO 20022 message: Usage

General

The pacs.009 is used in high-value / individual payments (single payments, large value payments) – within the Eurosystem via T2 (TARGET2), worldwide via SWIFT in accordance with the CBPR+ usage guidelines. It does not appear in the SEPA bulk payment schemes (SEPA SCT, SCT Inst), as these process customer payments (pacs.008) only.

T2 (TARGET2) / RTGS

FinancialInstitutionCreditTransfer – pacs.009.001.08

In T2 (RTGS component), the pacs.009 is the standard message for bank-to-bank payments. The ordering bank (instructing agent) sends the pacs.009 to the central bank platform, which debits the RTGS account (dedicated cash account) of the sending bank and credits the amount to the account of the receiving bank (instructed agent). Execution is confirmed or rejected with a pacs.002; the account holder can be notified of the booking via camt.054. Payments to ancillary systems and liquidity transfers can also be processed via pacs.009.

SWIFT MX (CBPR+) / correspondent banking

FinancialInstitutionCreditTransfer – pacs.009.001.08 (CORE, COV, ADV)

Via SWIFT, the pacs.009 has replaced the MT202 (pacs.009 CORE) and MT202 COV (pacs.009 COV) since the migration to ISO 20022. With the cover method, the customer payment is sent as a pacs.008 directly from the debtor bank to the creditor bank, while the cover travels as a pacs.009 COV along the chain of correspondent banks. In its “Underlying Customer Credit Transfer” block, the pacs.009 COV contains the references of the related pacs.008 so that the creditor bank can match payment and cover. Payments in other currencies are also possible via SWIFT.

A pacs.009 that has been sent can be recalled with a camt.056. If the recipient agrees to the recall, a pacs.004 is returned; if the recall is rejected, a camt.029 is returned.

Sources for specifications

• ISO 20022 standard – Payments Clearing and Settlement (pacs)
• ECB – T2 (TARGET2) User Detailed Functional Specifications
• Deutsche Bundesbank – TARGET2/T2
• SWIFT – CBPR+ usage guidelines (MX)