pacs.008 ISO 20022 message
Published on
15/12/2023
Updated on
30/09/2026
Reading time
2 min
As of 30 September 2026
Definition
The pacs.008 (FIToFICustomerCreditTransfer) is the ISO 20022 message that carries a credit transfer between payment service providers. It holds the payment itself: amount, parties, accounts and remittance information.
It is often confused with the pain.001. The difference is the leg: the pain.001 is the customer’s instruction to their bank, the pacs.008 the handover between the institutions. Both describe the same payment, but from a different perspective and in different fields.
The path of a payment
As a rule the pacs.008 does not travel directly from bank to bank, but through a clearing and settlement system (the Bundesbank’s SEPA-Clearer, EBA Clearing, T2/RTGS or TIPS, for example). The message therefore appears twice: once on submission, once on delivery.
The four environments
The same message is used in four environments, under different rules. All four currently use the same version from the ISO maintenance release 2019; versions are carried forward with the annual maintenance releases, and for T2 a change is envisaged no earlier than November 2027.
| Feature | SEPA SCT | SEPA SCT Inst | T2 / RTGS | Swift CBPR+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Message version | pacs.008.001.08 | pacs.008.001.08 | pacs.008.001.08 | pacs.008.001.08 |
| Transmission | bulk or single items via the SEPA-Clearer or another clearing system | single payment via TIPS or RT1 | single payment between central bank accounts | single payment over the Swift network |
| Currency | euro | euro | euro | any |
| Amount limit | no scheme limit | no scheme limit | none | none |
| Timing | forwarding by the following business day at the latest | five seconds target, time-out after seven | settlement in real time during the business day | no requirement in the rulebook |
| Status message | pacs.002 only where the payment is rejected | pacs.002 in every case, positive (ACCP) or negative (RJCT) | pacs.002 on the payment order | RJCT mandatory, positive statuses agreed bilaterally |
| Recall | camt.056, answered by pacs.004 or camt.029 | camt.056, answered by pacs.004 or camt.029 | camt.056 | camt.056, answered by pacs.004 or camt.029 |
Related messages
The pacs.008 is the original message that the R-transactions refer back to:
- camt.056 – recall request from the debtor bank
- pacs.004 – return of the money where the recall is accepted or the credit cannot be made
- camt.029 – answer to the recall where no money flows back
- pacs.002 – status message on the pacs.008
- pacs.028 – enquiry about an outstanding status
What it means for banks and payment service providers
The pacs.008 carries the highest volume of any message in payments. Two things drive the effort: first, each environment has its own population rules even though the version is the same – validating against the schema is not enough, it takes the implementation guidelines of the respective rulebook. Second, every pacs.008 has to remain findable afterwards: recall, return and status enquiry point back to it through its references, which makes their uniqueness and retention the deciding factor in how well exceptions can be handled.
Sources
- EPC – SEPA Credit Transfer Inter-PSP Implementation Guidelines
- EPC – SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Inter-PSP Implementation Guidelines
- EPC – Rulebook and implementation guidelines for the SCT scheme
- ECB – Change request T2-0170-SYS on carrying forward the T2 message versions
- ISO 20022 – Message Definitions