Swift Professional Standards & Competencies 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Swift practitioner discovers a client has been overpaying fees due to a bank processing error over 12 months. What is the practitioner's professional obligation?
- Ignore it unless the client raises the issue
- Promptly notify the client and assist in recovering the overpaid amounts (Correct answer)
- Wait until year-end reconciliation to address it
- Notify only internal compliance and take no further action
Correct answer: Promptly notify the client and assist in recovering the overpaid amounts
Professional standards require practitioners to act in the client's best interest, which includes proactively identifying and correcting financial discrepancies.
Question 2: Which Swift standard governs the format and content requirements for customer credit transfer messages (MT103)?
- ISO 15022
- ISO 20022
- Swift SR (Standards Release) guidelines (Correct answer)
- SEPA Credit Transfer Rulebook
Correct answer: Swift SR (Standards Release) guidelines
Swift Standards Releases (SR) define the specific field requirements, usage rules, and validation criteria for MT103 messages.
Question 3: A financial institution's Swift operator sends a payment with an incorrect BIC. What is the first corrective action per Swift best practices?
- Send a new payment immediately to the correct BIC
- Issue a Swift MT 192 or MT 292 recall/cancellation request (Correct answer)
- Contact the beneficiary bank by phone to redirect funds
- Wait 24 hours for automatic rejection and reprocessing
Correct answer: Issue a Swift MT 192 or MT 292 recall/cancellation request
Swift best practices require using MT 192 (customer) or MT 292 (bank) recall messages to cancel or correct a misdirected payment.
Question 4: Under Swift's Customer Security Programme (CSP), mandatory controls are classified as which level?
- Advisory
- Baseline (Correct answer)
- Enhanced
- Supplementary
Correct answer: Baseline
CSP mandatory controls are called 'Baseline' controls, which all Swift users must implement to remain compliant.
Question 5: What does the Swift CSCF (Customer Security Controls Framework) version update cycle require institutions to do annually?
- Re-register their Swift BIC with SWIFT
- Self-attest compliance with mandatory and advisory controls (Correct answer)
- Migrate all messages to ISO 20022 format
- Conduct third-party penetration testing of all systems
Correct answer: Self-attest compliance with mandatory and advisory controls
All Swift users must submit an annual self-attestation confirming their compliance status against the CSCF mandatory and advisory controls.
Question 6: Which ethical principle requires a Swift professional to avoid situations where personal interests conflict with client or employer interests?
- Confidentiality
- Integrity
- Conflict of interest avoidance (Correct answer)
- Professional competence
Correct answer: Conflict of interest avoidance
Conflict of interest avoidance requires professionals to identify, disclose, and manage situations where personal gain could compromise objective judgment.
Question 7: A correspondent bank receives an MT 202 COV but cannot identify the underlying customer credit transfer. What should it do?
- Process the MT 202 COV as a standard bank transfer without investigation
- Request the originating bank to provide the underlying MT 103 details (Correct answer)
- Reject the message and return funds immediately
- Hold the funds indefinitely pending internal review
Correct answer: Request the originating bank to provide the underlying MT 103 details
For MT 202 COV, the receiving bank must be able to link it to the underlying customer transfer and should request clarification if the connection is unclear.
Swift Professional Standards & Competencies 2
A Swift practitioner discovers a client has been overpaying fees due to a bank processing error over 12 months.
What is the practitioner's professional obligation?