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Table of contents

What is Payment Pre-validation?

Payment Pre-validation is an innovative solution that seeks to reduce errors and mistakes in payment messages before they’re sent. By pre-validating payments upfront, you can eliminate friction, reduce delays and deliver a seamless payment experience to your customers.

How much does Payment Pre-validation cost?

In 2022, Payment Pre-validation will be free of charge. Once this period is over, we’ll be switching to a yearly subscription model based on your API consumption. For more information, get in touch with your Swift account manager.

What checks does Payment Pre-validation perform?

Payment Pre-validation is an API suite consisting of three main areas. These can be accessed in a single product and consist of:

  • Beneficiary Account Verification: A collaborative service enabling you to verify beneficiary information.
  • Payment Validation: Using reference data and payment rules, this service verifies that payment information meets the quality criteria required by its target jurisdiction. This data is hosted centrally by Swift.
  • Fee Prediction: Get upfront information on interbank charges before sending a payment. This feature isn’t live yet, but we’ll keep you posted as we progress with it.

There is currently no graphical user interface for this solution. Instead, it is entirely operated by exchanging API calls.

Does Payment Pre-validation require universal adoption before it can be effective?

We’ve been working hard on a new feature to ensure that users can fully benefit from Payment Pre-validation from the moment they sign up. This feature is called ‘Central Beneficiary Account Verification’. It harnesses Swift transaction data to verify that account information is correct, instead of relying on members of our community to do so.

This means the solution doesn’t require universal adoption to be effective but can deliver real value from day one. And as more users sign up and contribute their data, the solution will only become better at delivering a frictionless payments experience. We plan to launch this feature at the end of Q1 2022. Sign up now to ensure you’re ready to reap the benefits.

How do I connect and implement Payment Pre-validation?

Payment Pre-validation can be used independently from the actual execution of a payment. To use it, you’ll need to be able to exchange API calls – either through a secure internet connection or via our API infrastructure. Connectivity options include our Software Development Kit or Microgateway. Learn more about how you can connect to our API channel.

To start using Payment Pre-validation, you’ll need to sign up and implement our API specifications. For more information, visit our Developer Portal.

API consumers & API providers – what’s the difference?

During the pre-validation process users play the role of API consumers or API providers.

API consumers can call our pre-validation APIs to ensure that their payment information is correct before a payment is sent. This information is validated by the beneficiary bank if they’re subscribed to Payment Pre-validation, or, if not, by Swift. When an API consumer makes this call, the role of the API provider begins – it’s their job to verify that the information provided is correct by answering those API calls. They can do this by comparing it with existing information they have about this account.

Both these roles are essential for the service to run smoothly. Requesting data in real time ensures that the information used to check payments is always accurate and up to date.

Which messages are compatible with Payment Pre-validation?

The service works across all payment formats, including MT-based messages and ISO 20022. This means that you won’t need to install any updates to account for new message formats once the industry has migrated to ISO 20022.

Will Swift be integrating Payment Pre-validation with gpi?

Payment Pre-validation is not a gpi-specific service, meaning that it can be used to pre-validate all payments on the Swift network. The advantage of this is that it can help reduce errors for all payments going over the Swift network or on any domestic market infrastructure. 

How does Swift protect user privacy?

We’ve taken every precaution to ensure your data is safe. You remain in control every step of the way and can choose who to share data with. We don’t store bank account information and our secure infrastructure means that only registered users in our community can send API calls with this service.

Users are only be able to request information that is already known to them as a means of verifying that it is correct. In other words, they cannot use this service to access new information. The only way to breach these security measures would be through a brute force attack. This would involve sending every possible account number and creditor name combination to the beneficiary bank. An attack like this would be incredibly impractical and inefficient because of our central platform throttling capabilities and would be spotted long before it was successful.

Does Payment Pre-validation operate globally?

Yes, Payment Pre-validation operates globally.

What languages is Payment Pre-validation available in?

The solution is API format agnostic.

Where can I find the full T&Cs?

If you’ve still got questions, download our T&Cs or get in touch with your account manager today.

Ready to join the Payment Pre-validation community?

Join the community today.

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