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PAYMENTS – BASIC TECHNICAL CONCEPTS  BY Rabinarayan Sabata An Analyst’s basic skill is Analysis. The term ‘Analyst’ may refer to Payment Analyst, Business Analyst, Technical Analyst and so on. An Analyst is the one who performs analysis of a given topic in his domain. To become a Payment Analyst, firstly, in-depth knowledge on payments is required. In addition, basic idea on certain tools/skills would be required which is an added feather in shaping the career path. Thanks to the Internet, we do not have to write payment messages and transfer it manually. All this is done in a secured, automated, and faster way. In order to process payments, our payment engine may have to depend on various other applications to get account information, balance details, exchange rate information, Clearing And Settlement system, interaction with Swift network, to share the payment details to other downstream for reconciliation and so on. It is always a good idea to know how our payment engine interac...

  Now that the job market is booming and there are a lot of interviews happening, I thought of compiling the   business analyst interview question   list. Note:  This list is not exhaustive and must be used at the final stage of preparation. Most of these questions were directed at me during my years of being interviewed. If you know the answers to all of these, then you should be good   You can also use this list to learn about BA topics Business Analyst Interview Question What are the roles and responsibilities of a Business Analyst? What are the key deliverables of a Business Analyst? What are the techniques used to gather requirements? What is a requirement priority? How will you prioritize requirements? What are the different requirement gathering techniques? What is FSD and who are the intended stakeholders? What is BRD and who are the intended stakeholders? What are the contents of a BRD? What are the contents of a FSD? What is a use case document? W...

  Common Interview Questions: Now that the payments job market is booming and there are lot of interviews happening, I thought of compiling a list of questions that you might get in an interview. Note:  This list is not exhaustive and must be used at the final stage of preparation. Most of these questions were directed at me during my years of being interviewed. If you know the answers to all of these, then you should be good  What is SWIFT?   Answer:  SWIFT stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is a co-operative of banks that provide the infrastructure and standards for the exchange of payment messages, especially in the cross-border space. SWIFT has a proprietary message type called  MT messages. What are the differences between SWIFT and SEPA?   Answer:  SEPA stands for  Single Euro Payments Area  which was created by the European Union to make the exchange of payment within the EU easy. SEPA deals...

  SWIFT MT – Serial and Cover Method This is one of the most important articles from SWIFT payments’ perspective and it is critical that you fully understand the concepts laid out here. Payments are cleared and settled via 2 primary methods: Through a payment market infrastructure (PMI) Through correspondent banking Through payment market infrastructure: This is the case where bank A and bank B are direct participants of this PMI aka CSM. IN General usage the concept of serial and cover does not apply here but if you put a gun to my head, I would say is very close to the serial method. Through correspondent banking: This is the case where banks open accounts with each other (Nostro/Vostro) and settle funds directly. The prerequisite here is that banks need to open accounts with each other or in other words they need to have an  accounting relationship  with the other bank. Now, let us try to understand the connection between sending/receiving SWIFT messages and the moveme...

  SWIFT MTs – Blocks 1 Through 5 We have discussed in our previous article that there are 5 blocks in a SWIFT MT message. Now we will dive deep into each of these blocks and try to understand them in detail. Please save this page for your future reference (At least till 2025) There are some common details and we will try to understand what they are All the blocks start with “{” The Block number or block identifier will be displayed at the very beginning followed by a “:” (Separator) This will be followed by the contents of the block The block will end with a “}” Basic Header Block (Block 1 ) This block is the only mandatory block and contains general information identifying a message.  Let us now dissect the block {1:F01CITIFRPPAXXX0070970817} This can be split into different components ( Split using spaces) {  1  :  F  01  CITIFRPPAXXX  0070 970817} F  – This is application Identifier or AppID . F Indicated that it is a FIN message 01  ...

  WIFT MTs – Key Details In this article, we are going to cover some key details on the SWIFT MT message. Let us dive right into the topic Naming Convention SWIFT MT messages have a very simple naming convention, it is easy to understand and is straightforward. The first question that might pop up in our mind is, “what does MT stand for??” MT simply stands for  Message type . This is followed by a 3-digit number 1 st  Digit – Category of the message 2 nd  Digit – Group of the message 3 rd  Digit – Type of the message Category   –  Describes  the underlying business function of the message. Example: Category 1 = Customer Payments and Cheques. Group  – Describes the function of the message within the specified category. Example: 11n = Category 1 Cheque Payment Messages. T ype  – Describes the specific function. Example: 112 = Status of a Request for Stop Payment of a Cheque. Usually, there are three types of groups (At least from a payment...