Payment Investigation

A payment investigation is a formal inquiry, usually conducted between banks, into a transfer that has been delayed, has not arrived, has been rejected, has been applied to the wrong account or has been processed incorrectly. The institutions involved exchange structured or free-format messages to establish where the payment is, what happened to it and what must be done to correct it, such as amending details, refunding fees or returning the funds.

Investigations are a routine part of cross-border payment operations. Because an international wire may pass through several intermediary banks, each with its own compliance checks and cut-off times, a single problem can require cooperation from every institution in the chain.

• Non-receipt: the beneficiary says the money has not arrived although the sender has been debited.
• Short payment: the amount credited is lower than expected, typically because of deductions under the OUR, SHA and BEN charge codes, resulting in a short-paid payment.
• Incorrect or incomplete details: a wrong account number or a beneficiary account mismatch between the name and the account.
• Compliance holds: a bank has stopped the payment for sanctions screening or anti-money laundering review and needs more information, for example about the underlying transaction or the payment-purpose code.
• Returned or rejected payments: the funds have been sent back and the parties need to know why, as with a returned payment.
• Duplicate or erroneous payments that the sender wants to recover through a payment recall.

The customer normally raises the issue with its own bank, providing the payment reference, the amount, the value date and the beneficiary details. The bank first confirms the payment's status internally and then contacts the next bank in the chain. The first step is often a payment trace to locate the funds; if the trace shows a problem, the case becomes a fuller investigation.

On the SWIFT network, investigations historically used the MT n95 and n96 query and answer messages, the n99 free-format message and the n92 request for cancellation. In ISO 20022, the exception and investigation messages in the camt family include camt.027 (claim non-receipt), camt.026 (unable to apply), camt.087 (request to modify payment), camt.056 (payment cancellation request) and camt.029 (resolution of investigation). Structured messages let banks process common cases automatically and track them consistently.

SWIFT gpi reduced the need for many investigations by giving each cross-border payment a Unique End-to-End Transaction Reference (UETR) and requiring participating banks to report status updates to a central tracker. Banks can see whether a payment has been credited, is pending at a particular bank or has been rejected, and which fees were deducted. SWIFT also offers case-management tools that route investigation requests to the right institution using the UETR.

An investigation ends when the issue is resolved: the beneficiary is credited, details are amended, fees are refunded or the funds are returned. Timescales vary from minutes for a simple status query to weeks where several banks are involved, a compliance review is pending or an intermediary is slow to reply. Banks often charge customers a fee for investigations, particularly those caused by incorrect instructions. For the receiving side, the beneficiary bank is often the key party, because it holds the information about whether and when the account was credited. Original message details, such as an MT103 copy, are frequently requested as proof of payment.