T2 with a CBPR+ Leg: Multi-Addressee in Practice

A direct participant can authorise its branch to submit and receive payments directly to T2 without their involvement, and that branch is the multi-addressee. The authorisation is recorded in CRDM, the branch BIC is listed in the RTGS Directory as code 07, and the branch connects through ESMIG with its own BIC. Commerzbank Frankfurt, BIC COBADEFFXXX, is the direct participant, and its Madrid branch, BIC COBAESMXXXX, is the multi-addressee. The Madrid branch can send a pacs.008 to T2 and receive a pacs.002 and a camt.054 from T2, without asking Frankfurt to send the message for it. The multi-addressee holds no RTGS DCA, and that fact shapes every payment it sends or receives. The account debited and credited is the direct participant account, in this case the Commerzbank Frankfurt RTGS Dedicated Cash Account. A EUR 250,000 payment sent by the Madrid branch debits the Frankfurt RTGS DCA, and a EUR 180,000 payment received by the Madrid branch credits the Frankfurt RTGS DCA. Frankfurt then updates the Madrid branch position in its own internal books, but T2 never sees a Madrid account, because no such account exists in the system. Consider a worked example with a payment that has two legs. A bank in New York sends a EUR 250,000 payment for a Spanish corporate customer to BNP Paribas in Paris, and the payment travels first through CBPR+ to Commerzbank Frankfurt, then through T2 to BNP Paribas. On the CBPR+ leg, the payment is a pacs.008 from the New York bank to Commerzbank Frankfurt. The BAH From is the New York bank BIC, the BAH To is COBADEFFXXX, the instructing agent is the New York bank, and the instructed agent is COBADEFFXXX. The CBPR+ rule is strict, and this leg obeys it. On the T2 leg, the Madrid branch, COBAESMXXXX, submits the onward pacs.008 to T2 for the same EUR 250,000 payment to BNP Paribas, BIC BNPAFRPPXXX. The BAH From is COBAESMXXXX, because Madrid is the technical sender, and the BAH To is the T2 service itself. The instructing agent is COBADEFFXXX, the direct participant that holds the account, and the instructed agent is BNPAFRPPXXX, the receiving bank. The account debited is the COBADEFFXXX RTGS DCA, and BNP Paribas receives a camt.054 credit notification after T2 settles the payment in central bank money. The T2 leg shows the key difference from CBPR+. In the T2 leg the instructed agent is different from BAH To, because the instructed agent is BNPAFRPPXXX while BAH To is the T2 service. That difference is NOT possible in CBPR+, where the instructing agent must equal BAH From and the instructed agent must equal BAH To. On the CBPR+ leg, the instructed agent COBADEFFXXX equals BAH To COBADEFFXXX, exactly as the rule requires. A developer who applies the CBPR+ rule to the T2 leg will address the payment wrongly, and a developer who applies the T2 rule to the CBPR+ leg will have the payment rejected by the next bank. Worked example with numbers: a bank in New York sends a EUR 250,000 payment for a Spanish corporate customer to BNP Paribas in Paris, and the payment travels first through CBPR+ to Commerzbank Frankfurt, then through T2 to BNP Paribas. On the CBPR+ leg the instructing agent must equal the Business Application Header From field, because CBPR+ is a bilateral network, so the header names Commerzbank Frankfurt. On the T2 leg the Madrid branch, COBAESMXXXX, submits the onward pacs.008 to T2 for the same EUR 250,000, and the header From is COBAESMXXXX while the header To is the T2 service, and the instructed agent is BNPAFRPPXXX. The same payment therefore carries two different header rules on its two legs, and the bank must get both right. Failure and recovery: the two leg payment fails when a bank applies the CBPR+ header rule to the T2 leg, or the T2 rule to the CBPR+ leg. If the Madrid branch puts BNPAFRPPXXX in the header To field on the T2 leg, T2 rejects the message, because the header must name the T2 service. If the bank puts the T2 service in the header on the CBPR+ leg, the receiving bank rejects it, because the header must name the receiving bank. The recovery is a corrected header and a resend on the failed leg, but the payment has lost time, and the customer must be told the new value date. A bank that runs both CBPR+ and T2 must therefore test the header rule for each leg separately, because a test that covers only one leg will miss the error on the other. For a business analyst, product owner or subject matter expert, the two leg requirement must state the header rule for each leg, CBPR+ names the receiving bank, T2 names the T2 service, and must show the full journey with the header and the agent fields for each leg. The requirement must also state that the multi-addressee branch is the technical sender on the T2 leg, while the direct participant holds the RTGS DCA that is debited, because confusing the technical sender with the settlement account is the most common error in a two leg payment. The test pack must include a payment with a CBPR+ leg and a T2 leg, and a payment where the header is wrong on one leg only. Source: European Central Bank, TARGET services; SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; last reviewed 7 November 2026.