You send a transfer to your supplier and it disappears. Three, four, five days later, someone confirms it arrived. In between: nothing. No status, no one accountable, no committed date.
It isn’t that your bank is slow. It’s that your transfer doesn’t travel: it makes stops.
The correspondent chain
Your bank in Chile almost never holds a direct account at your supplier’s bank. To get there, the payment passes through intermediaries — the correspondent banks:
- Your bank in Chile receives the order. If you’re past the daily cut-off, it only leaves on the next business day.
- A correspondent in the United States clears the dollars.
- A correspondent in the destination country receives and converts, where applicable.
- Your supplier’s bank credits the final account.
Each stop validates the payment against its own compliance lists, operates in its own time zone and with its own public holidays, and charges its own fee. That’s why the ranges published by the industry itself talk about 1 to 5 business days for an international transfer — and why the range is so wide: it depends on how many stops yours makes and what time it leaves.
Wasn’t SWIFT supposed to be instant?
Almost. SWIFT gpi —the version with tracking— reports that half of its payments are credited between banks in under 30 minutes. The catch is in “between banks”: the message travels fast; what takes time is each stop’s validations, the cut-offs, the time zones and the final crediting to the supplier’s account. The rail is quick. The chain isn’t.
What you can do tomorrow
- Ask about the correspondents. If your bank can’t tell you where your payment goes, nobody will be able to hurry it along when it’s late.
- Send before the cut-off. Every cut-off you miss is a full business day.
- Ask for the MT103. It’s the SWIFT message receipt: with it, your supplier’s bank can trace the payment. Without it, nobody looks for anything.
- Tell your supplier the real estimated date — chain days included — so they don’t hold the shipment waiting on money that will land on Thursday.
Sources: SWIFT — SWIFT gpi; Checkout.com — How long does an international transfer take?; Stripe — International payments.