Preferred versus mandatory intermediaries

Payment BA Awareness Series | EP44

The SwiftRef says Chase New York. The customer said Citi New York. Why doesn’t the engine just populate the preferred intermediary? 🤔

Because “preferred” is not “mandatory.”

Take a USD payment to Beneficiary Bank B:

→ SwiftRef / SSI: Chase New York

→ Customer instruction: Citi New York

At first glance, it may look easy:

“Just use the preferred correspondent.”

But that can be wrong.

The beneficiary may have pre-advised a specific USD Nostro.

Or the account may be part of an SPV / dedicated structure where credits must follow one route.

Overwrite it blindly, and funds can end up in the wrong place:

Delays · Repairs · Unreconciled credits

Scenario 1: No intermediary provided

Then reference data can fill the gap using:

→ Beneficiary bank

→ Currency

→ Internal routing table

→ SSI / SwiftRef

Scenario 2: Intermediary provided

Now reference data should validate, not automatically replace.

The engine should ask:

→ Is the intermediary valid for this beneficiary and currency?

→ Is it on the customer’s agreed routing list?

→ Can our bank settle through it?

→ Does it violate any mandatory routing rule?

✅ Valid → preserve the customer-provided route

⚠️ Unclear or invalid → repair / confirm with the customer before processing

💡 BA Takeaway

The BA requirement is not “derive the intermediary.”

The requirement is to define the precedence when multiple valid routing sources disagree.

That means defining how the engine should behave when:

Customer instruction · Agreed customer routing · Internal routing · SSI / reference data

do not point to the same route.

Reference data fills gaps.

It doesn’t automatically override intent.

#BusinessAnalysis #Payments #PaymentRouting #ISO20022