What are swift payments? The abbreviation swift is translated into Russian as a system of international interbank payments. It was founded in 1973 in Belgium, when no one had ever heard of non-cash transfers. Initially, 239 banks and 15 countries participated in the project, and the head office is located in Brussels. In 2010, there were more than 9,000 participating banks from 209 countries of the world. It is easy to transfer money via swift around the world, it is enough to know two details: the bank's swift code - the unique code of a financial institution and the recipient's bank of a legal entity or individual (by a simple account number in a particular bank). No other data is needed, the main thing is not to make a mistake in any digit, then the payment will quickly reach the addressee.
Today we can say that swift is the largest international payment system. Its scale is striking every day. Several million transactions are carried out in the community, and in a year their number reaches two and a half billion. There are several reasons for such popularity, first of all, it is the high speed of delivery, it is calculated not in days or even hours. For a regular message - 20 minutes, for an urgent message - one and a half minutes. No other payment system can boast of such a speed. And even if the payment is not delivered on time and the client has problems because of this, swift will compensate for all losses. Here is such a struggle for an impeccable reputation. In addition, you can transfer any amount, there are no restrictions. Well, for a final understanding of how convenient swift is, we will add a few more factors: high reliability, confidentiality of information, a wide range of currencies (not only the popular dollar, euro, pound sterling), low tariffs (especially compared to other systems), a wide geography of delivery (almost all countries of the world).
As the well-known proverb says, "every medal has a reverse side," so swift has flaws, where without them. Not every bank can join swift - the fee for connecting to the system is impressive, so small and medium-sized banks can only dream about it. In addition, to open an account in a financial institution through which payments will be made to legal entities and individuals, you need to provide a solid package of documents proving the legality of your income. But the last fact that can confuse is the monitoring of all payments by the US State Department, they control all payments, tracking interesting for them, especially large ones. And this is not the delirium of an inflamed imagination. However, if you have nothing to hide, the origin of your capital is transparent, the account has already been opened in the right bank, why not take advantage of the advantages that this system gives. The rosy picture can be spoiled by the legislation of the country in which the account is registered. In some countries, citizens are allowed to transfer only personal payments that are not related to commercial or investment activities in any way. And restrictions on the maximum amount can be set by local authorities. In some countries, you can send no more than 500 dollars in the equivalent of local currency per day, and in some up to 5000, sometimes the banks themselves, with frequent transfers of large amounts, request confirmation, this may be an invoice for tuition, treatment or confirmation of receipt of remuneration under an employment contract. In addition, swift does not work directly with recipients and senders, for this she invites intermediary banks to cooperate and then the transfer time (remember 20 minutes?) it can go back to hours and even days again. So when opening an account, you need to choose: firstly, a country in which there are no such restrictions or they are insignificant, and secondly, a bank that guarantees the minimum delivery time. When choosing a bank to make swift transfers, pay more attention to their tariffs, if they are minimal for the system itself, then intermediary banks can significantly increase them. Today, in various financial institutions, they range from 0.1 percent to two percent of the payment amount, but not less than 10-60 US dollars, because with swift, anyone can do almost anything, pay for children's studies abroad, book rooms in the most luxurious hotels in the world, buy goods on well-known Internet sites, and simply transfer money to friends or relatives. And for businessmen, it is as easy as possible to make an advance payment for an order for raw materials or to receive payment for the shipped goods, and both the sender and the recipient can be both a legal entity (any organization) and an individual (a simple citizen).