International Wires

Overview

International wires refer to the transfer of funds from one country to another. This type of transaction is commonly used by individuals and businesses that need to send or receive money across international borders.

International wires are typically processed through banks or other financial institutions. The process involves several steps, including the verification of the sender and recipient's identity, the conversion of the currency, and the transfer of funds.

The Synctera platform has the ability to generate International Wires and send them to the SWIFT Network via our sponsor banks.

About the SWIFT network

To send and receive international wires, our sponsor banks need to use the SWIFT network and in some cases correspondent banks (intermediary banks). SWIFT is slower and more expensive than other type of transfers.

In some cases intermediary banks will take a fee from the money sent in the international wire, we cannot guarantee the exact amount received by the wire beneficiary.

Creating an International Wire

1. USD to USD

There are cases where the sender account and the beneficiary account are in the same currency but located in different countries (i.e the wire beneficiary has a USD account in the UK). In this case the wire will be sent via SWIFT, therefore the SWIFT information is needed to reach the beneficiary account.

These are the steps to perform a USD to USD Wire transfer:

Pre-requisites:

1. An active and funded USD sending account in the platform
2. Create Wire beneficiary personal information: (in this example, we need the beneficiary name and their full legal address in the UK)

FinTech customer creates the Wire Beneficiary, which in the Synctera platform is a person or a business with is_customer flag set as false using /v0/persons or /v0/businesses

To create a valid beneficiary we need the full person name or business name as well as the full legal address including province and country code

In this step you will receive a person or business ID

1. Create the Wire beneficiary external account ID: External Account Guide

   This is the international account receiving the funds, you will use the person or business ID in the external account creation.

   In order to send a Wire, we require the beneficiary bank full name (i.e HSBC UK), bank address and country (i.e 8 Canada Square London E14 5HQ, United Kingdom) and Bank Swift code (i.e MIDLGB22123)

   We will also require the beneficiary account number. If the beneficiary account has an IBAN, we will collect the IBAN that already includes the account number (Link).

   If the account is not IBAN standard, then we will require the full routing number and account number

   Additionally, some banks work with correspondent banks, to process their payments. For example, HSBC UK might use Amazing Bank to process their International Wires for their UK office therefore, the wire sender will need to include the correspondent bank beneficiary information to make sure the wire is first re-directed to Amazing Bank and then to the final account destination within HSBC UK

   When all the account information is created, you will receive a external account ID to be used to create the International Wire transfer in the Synctera platform

2. Create an International Wire using POST /v0/international_wires :

   To create an international wire /v0/international_wires you will require the transfer amount in the beneficiary account currency. In this case will be the same as the sender account USD to USD.

   You will also require the customer id and originating account id, this is the sender of the wire.

   As the receiving account id, you will use the external account id created in the previous step.

   As part of the wire creation, you can enter specific wire instructions, for example, ‘this wire is for the benefit of company XYZ subsidiary of XXX’ this information is usually provided by the wire beneficiary as wire instructions and help the recipient bank to process the wire faster.

   Wire purpose is another required field, it represents the reason for the Wire.

   When the ‘Create Wire API’ is executed we will validate that the platform has all the required information to execute a wire transfer with the SWIFT network. By following the steps above you should have all the necessary information for the wire.

   At the transaction creation, the Synctera platform performs OFAC checks on the sender and beneficiary as well as fraud checks together with the sender account validation and balance validation.

3. International Wire transaction authorization creation:

   When the international wire is sucessfully created, the sender account will be debited with a debit authorization for the wire amount.

   The integrator receives transaction webhook events indicating the transaction authorization creation.

4. International Wire bank approval:

   The international wire is now sent to the sponsor bank for approval and exchange with the SWIFT network. The sponsor bank will approve or in rare cases, decline the outgoing international wire.

   These are the two scenarios:

   • Wire approved: When the international Wire is approved and confirmed by the bank, the debit authorization moves from PENDING to POSTED and the integrator receives transaction webhooks
     • Created international wires may be cancelled by the fintech by patching the status of the wire to CANCELLED, this can only be done prior to the bank confirming the wire
   • Shortly after, the bank will submit the international wire to SWIFT, after which the wire will be updated with the imad number of the wire
   • Wire declined: In rare cases, when the international Wire is declined by the bank for different reasons (i.e SWIFT information is incorrect or beneficiary has been marked as fraud), the transaction authorization moves from PENDING to DECLINED and the reason is included as part of the webhook payload so the integrator can pass that information to their OPS team and customer (in this case the sender)