MT202 — General Financial Institution Transfer

The "pure" interbank transfer: one bank orders the settlement of an amount to another bank, with no necessarily identified end customer. Wholesale counterpart of MT103.

Purpose

MT202 is used for bank-to-bank flows with no end-customer involvement:

• nostro/vostro settlement (account positions between correspondent banks);
• FX settlement (one leg of an FX spot or forward);
• derivatives settlement (margins, swap settlements);
• securities settlement;
• cover payment of an MT103 — when the MT103 and its settlement take different routes (MT202 COV variant).

Unlike MT103, MT202 carries no "Ordering Customer" or "Beneficiary Customer" block in the clear — only financial agents appear. This absence fuelled 20 years of AML/CFT criticism: a "serial" MT202 (without cover) hid the real originator from the intermediate correspondent. The MT202 COV variant (2009) addresses this by mandating the :50a: Ordering Customer tag.

Five-block structure

Same as MT103 (see MT103): five blocks, with business tags in Block 4.

• Block 1 — {1:F01...} sender.
• Block 2 — {2:I202...} receiver + MT.
• Block 3 — {121:UETR} mandatory since November 2018.
• Block 4 — Business tags (see below).
• Block 5 — Checksum.

Mandatory Block 4 tags

Frequent conditional tags: :52a: (Ordering Institution: differs from the SWIFT sender when there is a sub-orderer), :53a: (Sender's Correspondent), :54a: (Receiver's Correspondent), :56a: (Intermediary), :57a: (Account With Institution), :72: (Sender to Receiver Information — free-text operational instructions between banks, max 6 lines × 35 chars).

MT202 COV — Cover Payment

MT202 COV (introduced in 2009 under FATF / FinCEN / Wolfsberg Group pressure) mandates originator transparency for cover payments. When a bank must credit a correspondent on behalf of an MT103, it sends an MT202 COV with these additional mandatory blocks:

• :50a: — Ordering Customer (original MT103 originator).
• :59a: — Beneficiary Customer (final MT103 beneficiary).
• :70: — Remittance Information (same as MT103).
• :33B: — Currency / Instructed Amount.
• :71A: — Details of Charges.

These tags reproduce verbatim the content of the underlying MT103. The MT202 COV's :21: must point at the cover MT103's reference (:20:). This redundancy guarantees KYC traceability across the correspondent chain.

Real-world example

Interbank settlement of a 12,500 EUR cover from BNP Paribas via its USD New York correspondent (BNPP US) and JP Morgan Chase NYC (intermediary) to Deutsche Bank Frankfurt, related to a prior client MT103 (reference REF20260514001):

{1:F01BNPAFRPPAXXX0000000000}{2:I202DEUTDEFFXXXXN}{3:{108:CORR20260514001}{121:9e8d7c6b-5a4f-3e2d-1c0b-9a8b7c6d5e4f}}{4:
:20:CORR20260514001
:21:REF20260514001
:32A:260514EUR12500,00
:52A:BNPAFRPPXXX
:53A:BNPAUS33XXX
:56A:CHASUS33XXX
:57A:DEUTDEFFXXX
:58A:DEUTDEFFXXX
:72:/BNF/SETTLEMENT FOR PACS008 REF MT103
-}{5:{CHK:0123456789AB}}

• :20:CORR20260514001 — internal MT202 reference.
• :21:REF20260514001 — link to the originating client MT103.
• :32A:260514EUR12500,00 — value 14 May 2026, 12,500 EUR.
• :52A:BNPAFRPPXXX — ordering institution.
• :53A:BNPAUS33XXX — sender's correspondent (USD nostro).
• :56A:CHASUS33XXX — intermediary (JP Morgan Chase).
• :57A:DEUTDEFFXXX — account with institution.
• :58A:DEUTDEFFXXX — beneficiary institution.
• :72: — free note for the receiving bank.

Common errors

• "Serial" MT202 instead of MT202 COV: if the settlement is tied to a client MT103, the right message is MT202 COV; otherwise AML/CFT screening at the correspondent rejects or delays.
• :21: = NONREF when an underlying exists: breaks traceability. Carry the MT103 or FX confirm reference.
• Incomplete correspondent chain: omitting :54a: when routing through the receiver's correspondent triggers an accounting mismatch on the Receiver side.
• Undocumented currency mismatch between :32A: and :33B:: for MT202 COV with FX, the instruction/settlement pair must be consistent with an implicit :36: (FX rate not carried in MT202 but agreed in the chain).
• Missing UETR: since November 2018, MT202 is also under gpi: UETR mandatory in Block 3 :121:.
• Character set x: same as MT103, accented characters are not allowed.

MX equivalent — pacs.009

In ISO 20022, MT202 maps to pacs.009.001.10 (Financial Institution Credit Transfer). The MT202 COV variant maps to pacs.009.001.10 with the CdtTrfTxInf/UndrlygCstmrCdtTrf element carrying the embedded copy of the cover pacs.008 (Underlying Customer Credit Transfer).

Partial mapping table:

Related messages

• MT103 — client transfer. Often followed by an MT202 COV for cover settlement.
• MT900 — Confirmation of Debit. Confirms the sender's account has been debited.
• MT910 — Confirmation of Credit. Confirms the receiver's account has been credited.
• MT203 — Multiple Financial Institution Transfer. Several MT202s in one message to optimise bandwidth.
• MT300 — Foreign Exchange Confirmation. Often correlated via :21: in an MT202 FX settlement.
• pacs.009 — ISO 20022 equivalent.