Sent wrong payment to right IBAN but wrong SWIFT. What will happen now?

Question

I sent a payment to the incorrect SWIFT but right account number. The money hasn't been received at the other end. What will happen now?

Answer 1

The bank number is part of the IBAN number, so the SWIFT code is actually redundant. It is still required for international payments because every country has its own payment infrastructure. The SWIFT code helps to route it to the correct region without having to know every single bank in that region. It is usually not needed for national payments, but banks ask for it anyway so that both national and international payments follow the same process.

When you enter a wrong SWIFT, then this is what will happen:

1. Your bank will subtract the money from your account balance.
2. Your bank tries to send it to the bank with that SWIFT code.
3. When the SWIFT code does not exist at all, your bank will reverse the payment and put the money back into your account.

4. When the SWIFT code does exist, then:

   1. The receiving bank will receive the payment message
   2. They notice that they don't manage that account number (the bank part of the IBAN will not match them or any of their subsidiaries).
   3. They will reply to your bank that they are unable to process the payment
   4. Your bank will put the money back into your account.

In the internet age, it should be possible for all of this to happen within seconds, but it will still take a few days because... reasons.

IBAN numbers are globally unique, so when you entered the correct IBAN there is no chance that the money will arrive on a different account than you intended to (Also, the first two digits after the country code are a checksum, so when you accidently make a typo while entering an IBAN, there is a 99% chance that this will be detected automatically).

Answer 2

If the payment is sent to incorrect swift code, the receiving bank will return the payment.