| Field | Meaning | Required |
|---|---|---|
:20: | A unique reference assigned by the sending bank to identify this payment through its whole life. It must not repeat for the same sender within the same business | M |
:23B: | A four character code that tells the receiving bank how to handle the transfer. CRED means a normal credit transfer, SPAY means a SWIFT payment, SSTD means a st | M |
:32A: | The value date on which funds become available to the beneficiary, the three letter ISO currency code and the amount to be paid. For USD 25,000 on 5 November 20 | M |
:33B: | The currency and amount in which the ordering customer instructed the payment, when that differs from the settlement currency in field 32A. It preserves the ori | O |
:50a: | The customer who ordered the payment, identified by account number and name and address. Option K gives account, name and address in free text. Option F gives s | M |
:52a: | The financial institution that ordered the transfer when it is not the sender of the message. It is normally the bank holding the ordering customer account in a | O |
:53a: | The account held by the sender with the receiver, or the correspondent bank through which settlement will occur. It tells the receiving bank where to debit the | O |
:54a: | The account held by the receiver with another bank, used when the receiver does not hold the sender account directly. It identifies the next bank in the settlem | O |
:57a: | The bank where the beneficiary holds an account, when it is not the receiver of the MT103. It directs the receiving bank to forward the payment to the correct a | O |
:59a: | The final recipient of the funds, identified by account number and name and address. Option A gives the account and BIC, option F gives structured name and addr | M |
:70: | Free text information for the beneficiary explaining what the payment is for, such as an invoice number, contract reference or salary month. It is limited to fo | O |
:71A: | A three letter code stating who pays the transfer charges. OUR means the ordering customer pays all charges, BEN means the beneficiary pays all charges, and SHA | M |
Meridian Bank London sends an MT103, reference MER1035521, for USD 25,000 value 5 November 2024 to Harbour Bank Singapore to pay Bright Logistics for invoice INV-1187. This is a pre-migration example, from before coexistence ended on 22 November 2025. Field :71A: is SHA, the beneficiary account is given in :59a:, and the payment settles on the value date.
Valid example from the message catalogue. Scheme rules: MT103 is a SWIFT MT (FIN) message, not a base ISO 20022 message: there is no single global scheme rulebook, and each bank and market practice sets its own format limits and cut-off times on top of the
Practical Exercise: Transform an MT103 into pacs.008
What you will learn
Your objective. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain practical exercise: transform an MT103 into pacs.008. Here is a pre-migration MT103 we will transform, sent before coexistence ended on 22 November 2025.
Why it matters. This matters because the message is the payment instruction. A wrong field, a missing element or a misunderstood format is a failed payment, a return, or a compliance breach.
Chapter objective: Learner navigates the complete ISO 20022 catalogue, selecting the right message for each business scenario across payments, cash management, securities, and reporting. Learner practises this skill on realistic banking cases, explaining the reasoning clearly and using correct terminology throughout the work.
Key learning points
- Here is a pre-migration MT103
- Field 57A
- Mapping the header and amount fields
- Mapping the parties and accounts needs care
- Field 56A
- Sender correspondent account
Key terms
Remittance information: Information that explains what a payment is for, such as invoice numbers, contract references or salary month.
Execution date: The date on which the bank executes a payment instruction, debiting the debtor account and sending the message onward.
Charge bearer: A code that states who pays the charges for a payment. In ISO 20022 the values are DEBT for debtor, CRED for creditor, SHAR for shared and SLEV for service level.
SWIFT MT message viewer showing Practical Exercise: Transform an MT103 into pacs.008.
Practise this lesson
Exercise
Read the MT103 we message described in this lesson and identify its key parts.
Use the message structure, fields and example in this lesson.
- What to do. List the main blocks of the message, name the field that carries the amount, and name the field that identifies the payment.
Correct result. The message is made of blocks, each carrying a part of the payment instruction. The amount field and the identification field are the two a receiving bank checks first, because without them it cannot process or reconcile the payment.
Why. A message is only useful if you can read it. The blocks tell the receiving bank what to do, and the amount and identification fields are what it checks first.
Check your understanding
Practice question
Which of the following best describes practical exercise: transform an MT103 into pacs.008?
Takeaway and next step
What to remember
Field 53B, the sender correspondent account, maps to the settlement information, not to a party field, and placing it in the wrong block would misdirect the settlement.
Open the message type from this lesson and inspect its fields, then find the field that carries the amount.
Open the ISO 20022 Message Explorer →
Builds on "Mandatory, Optional and Conditional Fields, Schema Validation, External Code Sets, Version Management and Market Practice Rules".
Transcript and full text
Show transcript
Transforming an MT103 into a pacs.008 is the practical exercise that turns the theory of ISO 20022 into working knowledge, and it is the exercise a business analyst must be able to do. The MT103 is the SWIFT customer payment message, and the pacs.008 is the ISO 20022 FI to FI customer credit transfer. The transformation is a field by field mapping, and each MT103 field maps to a pacs.008 element, or to a combination of elements, or it has no equivalent and must be dropped or carried in another field. The mapping must be specified in detail, because a wrong mapping will cause the payment to be rejected, or to be credited to the wrong account, or to lose information the beneficiary needs. Here is the field mapping, in full. MT103 field 20, the sender transaction reference, maps to the pacs.008 payment identification, PmtId, instruction identification, InstrId. MT103 field 23B, the bank operation code, maps to the pacs.008 payment type information, PmtTpInf, and to the service level, SvcLvl, where CRED maps to a normal payment and SPAY, SLEV, or URGP maps to an urgent payment. MT103 field 32A, the value date, currency code, and amount, maps to the pacs.008 instructed amount, InstdAmt, and the interbank settlement date, IntrBkSttlmDt. MT103 field 50a, the ordering customer, maps to the pacs.008 debtor, Dbtr, with option A mapping to the debtor identification, option F mapping to the structured debtor, and option K mapping to the debtor name and address. MT103 field 52a, the ordering institution, maps to the pacs.008 debtor agent, DbtrAgt. MT103 field 53a, the sender correspondent, maps to the pacs.008 settlement information, SttlmInf, and to the instructing agent, InstgAgt. MT103 field 56a, the intermediary institution, maps to the pacs.008 intermediary agent, IntrmyAgt. MT103 field 57a, the account with institution, maps to the pacs.008 creditor agent, CdtrAgt. MT103 field 59a, the beneficiary customer, maps to the pacs.008 creditor, Cdtr, with option A mapping to the creditor identification, option F mapping to the structured creditor, and option K mapping to the creditor name and address. MT103 field 70, the remittance information, maps to the pacs.008 remittance information, RmtInf, unstructured, Ustrd, limited to 140 characters. MT103 field 71A, the details of charges, maps to the pacs.008 charge bearer, ChrgBr, where OUR maps to DEBT, BEN maps to CRED, and SHA maps to SHAR. MT103 field 71F, the sender charges, maps to the pacs.008 charges information, ChrgsInf, with the amount and the agent. MT103 field 71G, the receiver charges, also maps to the pacs.008 charges information, ChrgsInf. MT103 field 72, the sender to receiver information, maps to the pacs.008 instruction for the next agent, InstrForNxtAgt, or to the instruction for the creditor agent, InstrForCdtrAgt, depending on the code in field 72. MT103 field 77B, the regulatory reporting, maps to the pacs.008 regulatory reporting, RgltryRptg. MT103 field 33B, the currency and amount originally instructed, maps to the pacs.008 equivalent amount, EqvtAmt, and the exchange rate, XchgRate. Here is a worked example. An MT103 from HSBC London to JPMorgan New York, field 20 reference PAY 2026 0512 001, field 32A value date 120526, currency USD, amount 10,000.00, field 50K ordering customer Atlas Holdings Ltd, London, field 59 beneficiary, a supplier in New York, field 70 remittance information INV 2026 0441, field 71A OUR. The pacs.008 that results has a group header with MsgId PAY 2026 0512 001, a credit transfer transaction information block with PmtId InstrId PAY 2026 0512 001, EndToEndId ATLAS-INV-0441, UETR generated by HSBC, InstdAmt USD 10,000.00, IntrBkSttlmDt 2026-05-12, Dbtr Atlas Holdings Ltd, London, Cdtr the supplier, RmtInf Ustrd INV 2026 0441, ChrgBr DEBT, because 71A OUR maps to DEBT. The pacs.008 carries the same business information as the MT103, but in a structured XML format, with the debtor and creditor as structured parties, and the remittance information as a separate element. The tricky fields are the ones that do not map directly. Field 72 in the MT103 carries free text with codes, such as /ACC/ for the account, /INS/ for the instruction, and /BNF/ for the beneficiary information. The pacs.008 does not have a single field 72 equivalent, and the codes must be mapped to the correct pacs.008 element. /ACC/ maps to the creditor account, CdtrAcct. /INS/ maps to the instruction for the next agent, InstrForNxtAgt. /BNF/ maps to the instruction for the creditor agent, InstrForCdtrAgt. A bank that maps field 72 as a single block of text will lose the structure, and the receiving bank will not know which instruction applies to it. The mapping must parse the field 72 codes and route each one to the correct element. The character set is another tricky area. The MT messages use the SWIFT x character set, which is a limited set of characters, including letters, digits, and a small set of punctuation. The ISO 20022 messages use UTF-8, which is a much larger character set. When a bank converts an MT103 to a pacs.008, it must handle the characters that are valid in ISO 20022 but not in MT, and it must handle the characters that are valid in MT but need to be escaped in XML, such as the ampersand and the angle brackets. A name with an ampersand, such as Smith and Jones Ltd, must be written as Smith andamp; Jones Ltd in the XML, and a bank that writes the raw ampersand will produce invalid XML that fails schema validation. The mapping must therefore include the character set conversion and the XML escaping. For a business analyst, the transformation requirement must state the field mapping table, the handling of the tricky fields, and the character set conversion. The requirement should say that the system maps each MT103 field to the correct pacs.008 element, that it parses field 72 and routes each code to the correct element, that it escapes XML special characters, and that it validates the resulting pacs.008 against the XSD before sending it. A system that cannot map field 72 correctly, or that cannot escape XML characters, will produce pacs.008 messages that are rejected by the receiving bank, and the payments will fail.
Transforming an MT103 into a pacs.008 is the practical exercise that turns the theory of ISO 20022 into working knowledge, and it is the exercise a business analyst must be able to do. The MT103 is the SWIFT customer payment message, and the pacs.008 is the ISO 20022 FI to FI customer credit transfer. The transformation is a field by field mapping, and each MT103 field maps to a pacs.008 element, or to a combination of elements, or it has no equivalent and must be dropped or carried in another field. The mapping must be specified in detail, because a wrong mapping will cause the payment to be rejected, or to be credited to the wrong account, or to lose information the beneficiary needs.
Here is the field mapping, in full. MT103 field 20, the sender transaction reference, maps to the pacs.008 payment identification, PmtId, instruction identification, InstrId. MT103 field 23B, the bank operation code, maps to the pacs.008 payment type information, PmtTpInf, and to the service level, SvcLvl, where CRED maps to a normal payment and SPAY, SLEV, or URGP maps to an urgent payment. MT103 field 32A, the value date, currency code, and amount, maps to the pacs.008 instructed amount, InstdAmt, and the interbank settlement date, IntrBkSttlmDt. MT103 field 50a, the ordering customer, maps to the pacs.008 debtor, Dbtr, with option A mapping to the debtor identification, option F mapping to the structured debtor, and option K mapping to the debtor name and address.
MT103 field 52a, the ordering institution, maps to the pacs.008 debtor agent, DbtrAgt. MT103 field 53a, the sender correspondent, maps to the pacs.008 settlement information, SttlmInf, and to the instructing agent, InstgAgt. MT103 field 56a, the intermediary institution, maps to the pacs.008 intermediary agent, IntrmyAgt. MT103 field 57a, the account with institution, maps to the pacs.008 creditor agent, CdtrAgt. MT103 field 59a, the beneficiary customer, maps to the pacs.008 creditor, Cdtr, with option A mapping to the creditor identification, option F mapping to the structured creditor, and option K mapping to the creditor name and address. MT103 field 70, the remittance information, maps to the pacs.008 remittance information, RmtInf, unstructured, Ustrd, limited to 140 characters.
MT103 field 71A, the details of charges, maps to the pacs.008 charge bearer, ChrgBr, where OUR maps to DEBT, BEN maps to CRED, and SHA maps to SHAR. MT103 field 71F, the sender charges, maps to the pacs.008 charges information, ChrgsInf, with the amount and the agent. MT103 field 71G, the receiver charges, also maps to the pacs.008 charges information, ChrgsInf. MT103 field 72, the sender to receiver information, maps to the pacs.008 instruction for the next agent, InstrForNxtAgt, or to the instruction for the creditor agent, InstrForCdtrAgt, depending on the code in field 72. MT103 field 77B, the regulatory reporting, maps to the pacs.008 regulatory reporting, RgltryRptg. MT103 field 33B, the currency and amount originally instructed, maps to the pacs.008 equivalent amount, EqvtAmt, and the exchange rate, XchgRate.
Here is a worked example. An MT103 from HSBC London to JPMorgan New York, field 20 reference PAY 2026 0512 001, field 32A value date 120526, currency USD, amount 10,000.00, field 50K ordering customer Atlas Holdings Ltd, London, field 59 beneficiary, a supplier in New York, field 70 remittance information INV 2026 0441, field 71A OUR. The pacs.008 that results has a group header with MsgId PAY 2026 0512 001, a credit transfer transaction information block with PmtId InstrId PAY 2026 0512 001, EndToEndId ATLAS-INV-0441, UETR generated by HSBC, InstdAmt USD 10,000.00, IntrBkSttlmDt 2026-05-12, Dbtr Atlas Holdings Ltd, London, Cdtr the supplier, RmtInf Ustrd INV 2026 0441, ChrgBr DEBT, because 71A OUR maps to DEBT. The pacs.008 carries the same business information as the MT103, but in a structured XML format, with the debtor and creditor as structured parties, and the remittance information as a separate element.
The tricky fields are the ones that do not map directly. Field 72 in the MT103 carries free text with codes, such as /ACC/ for the account, /INS/ for the instruction, and /BNF/ for the beneficiary information. The pacs.008 does not have a single field 72 equivalent, and the codes must be mapped to the correct pacs.008 element. /ACC/ maps to the creditor account, CdtrAcct. /INS/ maps to the instruction for the next agent, InstrForNxtAgt. /BNF/ maps to the instruction for the creditor agent, InstrForCdtrAgt. A bank that maps field 72 as a single block of text will lose the structure, and the receiving bank will not know which instruction applies to it. The mapping must parse the field 72 codes and route each one to the correct element.
The character set is another tricky area. The MT messages use the SWIFT x character set, which is a limited set of characters, including letters, digits, and a small set of punctuation. The ISO 20022 messages use UTF-8, which is a much larger character set. When a bank converts an MT103 to a pacs.008, it must handle the characters that are valid in ISO 20022 but not in MT, and it must handle the characters that are valid in MT but need to be escaped in XML, such as the ampersand and the angle brackets. A name with an ampersand, such as Smith and Jones Ltd, must be written as Smith andamp; Jones Ltd in the XML, and a bank that writes the raw ampersand will produce invalid XML that fails schema validation. The mapping must therefore include the character set conversion and the XML escaping.
For a business analyst, the transformation requirement must state the field mapping table, the handling of the tricky fields, and the character set conversion. The requirement should say that the system maps each MT103 field to the correct pacs.008 element, that it parses field 72 and routes each code to the correct element, that it escapes XML special characters, and that it validates the resulting pacs.008 against the XSD before sending it. A system that cannot map field 72 correctly, or that cannot escape XML characters, will produce pacs.008 messages that are rejected by the receiving bank, and the payments will fail.
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