Exceptions and Investigations

Automating your payment enquiries

SWIFT’s solution for Exceptions and Investigations supports the automation of payment-related enquiries, whether you are a financial institution or a corporate.

Payment enquiries and resolution concern typically a limited number of messages (2-5% on average). It’s nevertheless a very labour-intensive process which represents a growing cost for all players in the industry.

Exceptions and Investigations provides a response to this industry pain point, with the following key benefits:

Save costs by automating enquiries: Potential staff cost savings for the industry as a whole have been estimated at 35% yearly; messaging cost savings at up to 30% yearly.

Comply with regulation without adding more staff: A fully automated process allows you to acquire new business and sustain growing volumes caused by new and stricter industry regulations (SEPA, FATF7) while maintaining the same customer SLAs and without needing to recruit additional staff.

Reduce risk: An automated process reduces the risk linked to pending payments and considerably shortens your recovery time after disasters and outages.

Improve customer service: You will offer your customers shortened investigations turnaround time as well as a fully transparent view on ongoing investigations. It will help them to better control their payables and receivables and improve their treasury management.

Exceptions and Investigations allows you to automate your enquiries process as it provides you with a strict business and communication protocol. A clear definition of the actors, their roles, the communication flows and exchanged messages guarantee higher straight-through processing -rates, while a clear rulebook endorses industry and best practice. The solution results from the combination of ISO 20022 XML standards, a market practice rulebook, our InterAct messaging service and a SWIFT or third-party application.

Over 100 financial institutions and corporates have signed up to use the service. To browse the full list and find their readiness-status, please refer to the SN Services Directory.
To find out why and how they implemented E&I, please check out the case studies below.

For further details, please contact your Regional Account Manager or send an email to Exceptions.and.Investigations@swift.com.