SWIFT & ISO 20022 Rejects Explained

Find the payment rejection, NACK, or schema mismatch behind your SWIFT/ISO 20022 failure.

Search for the exact issue your operations team is seeing: MT103 and MT202 validation failures, pacs.008 conversion breaks, NACK responses, account detail rejects, and field-level parsing errors that can delay settlement.

Operational risk

Reduce settlement delays caused by invalid routing, settlement dates, and account detail mismatches.

MT / MX transitions

Understand where legacy MT formats diverge from ISO 20022 pacs.008 and pacs.009 expectations.

Parser-friendly guidance

Use the rejection reason and likely cause to guide your internal support and transformation workflow.

T64

T64 - BIC / Address Validation Error

Validation

The T64 error appears when an institution or clearing code fails BIC validation in SWIFT MT formats, often causing payment rejection before the message reaches the receiving bank.

Common rejection reason

Invalid or unregistered BIC used for the ordering or intermediary institution.

MT103 routing rejectIntermediary bank validation failureBIC lookup mismatch
View guidance
U03

U03 - Invalid IBAN Format

Reference & Format

The U03 error is triggered when the provided account number does not conform to standard IBAN structure for the destination country, causing account validation to fail.

Common rejection reason

Account identifier does not pass checksum, length, or country-specific IBAN rules.

IBAN formatting errorDestination account rejectCreditor account mismatch
View guidance
C03

C03 - Value Date Mismatch

Compliance

The C03 error indicates a mismatch between the value date specified in the message and the allowed value date rules for the currency.

Common rejection reason

The settlement or value date does not meet the expected calendar or business-day rule.

Weekend value date rejectCurrency holiday mismatchSettlement date parsing issue
View guidance
NACK

NACK - ISO 20022 Negative Acknowledgement

NACK / Reject

A NACK response indicates the receiving system rejected the message at a structural or semantic level, often after a parser or schema validation step.

Common rejection reason

The receiving participant rejected the payload because one or more business or structural rules failed.

pacs.008 negative acknowledgementschema validation rejectionmessage-level reject
View guidance
SCHEMA

Schema Mismatch - MT to MX Structural Breakdown

Schema & Mapping

Schema mismatches occur when legacy MT blocks or field ordering do not align with the stricter ISO 20022 MX document structure, especially for MT103 and MT202 conversions.

Common rejection reason

The transformed message contains a field, nesting, or cardinality mismatch that violates the target MX schema.

MT103 to pacs.008 mismatchMT202 to pacs.009 mismatchXML field ordering failure
View guidance
SETTLEMENT

Settlement Rule Error - Date or Currency Rejection

Routing & Settlement

Settlement rule errors happen when the payment instruction uses an unsupported settlement date, currency combination, or business-day rule.

Common rejection reason

The payment instruction does not meet the expected settlement calendar or currency processing rules.

same-day settlement failureholiday-based rejectcurrency-specific settlement issue
View guidance