Money Mover drags payment tracking into the 21st Century

Posted on the 7th May 2020 by Hamish Anderson in Founders' blog, Finance, Money Mover News, News

I remember how exciting it was when I first encountered package tracking from one of the major parcel delivery firms. Knowing the exact location of my order on its journey to me felt like a big deal. Not only was it interesting to follow its progress but, knowing that it was on its way and when it would arrive somehow made you feel that you could get on with your life in the meantime.

In comparison, cross-border payment tracking has left a lot to be desired. However, the Money Mover Team has always been motivated by challenging convention, and our latest innovation is set to bring payment tracking bang up to date.

The status quo

One of the earliest goals for the Money Mover platform was to provide a similar level of tracking for global payments. We've always provided our users with email and dashboard updates on the status of their transactions. However, this has always been more limited than we would have liked. We currently notify our users at the following points:

• When they have instructed their payment
• When we receive their settlement funds
• When their payment settles (i.e. when the currency conversion completes)
• When their payment is sent 

To supplement this we provide a confirmation (known as an MT103) for every payment as soon as it is sent. The MT103 is a transaction record available for wire transfers sent using the SWIFT network. While it accurately describes details of the payment, it’s just a confirmation. Once the payment has been sent, there’s still an information blackspot until funds reach their destination. 

SWIFT GPI - the next big thing

To address the shortcomings above, and to help our users understand even more about what's going on with their payments, we're thrilled to announce the launch of Money Mover Locate. Money Mover Locate provides live payment tracking including confirmation of successful credit to a recipient account. This feature is powered by the new SWIFT Global Payment Initiative (or GPI) and Money Mover will be one of the first non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) to offer it to its users. SWIFT GPI improves how cross-border payments are handled in the banking system and the transparency around them. It provides major new benefits including predictability of charges, increased speed and improved payment tracking.

Routing fees and other nasties

Routing fees and miscellaneous deductions have long been the bane of the cross-border remitter trying to ensure that the intended amount arrives with its recipient. Not only does GPI allow us to see what charges have been applied where, but Swift has been working with its members to make fees consistent and predictable across the banking network. Playing Russian roulette with routing fees will soon be a thing of the past.

Tracking and tracing payments

Each transaction is now allocated a unique tracking reference (UETR) which is shared by the banks involved in the process and allows it to be traced at any point in its cross-border journey. In addition to the MT103 and transaction confirmations that Money Mover already provides, our users will soon be able to see the live location and status of any payment they make with us from their dashboard. 

Confirmation of receipt

This is probably the most significant development for Money Mover users. A frequent support query is from users whose payments have completed but whose recipients are yet to receive funds. This could be for all sorts of reasons; the usual one being that the destination bank is holding the payment in a suspense account pending checks of some sort. Money Mover Locate will provide all our users with definitive confirmation that their payments have credited the account of their recipient. This will avoid the confusion and uncertainty arising when banks receive funds but fail to allocate them promptly to the beneficiary.

We've written before about how long it takes for international payments to complete and the reasons why transfers may be delayed or even fail. Money Mover Locate isn't a panacea but will improve the certainty and visibility of the payments made by our users. In a time when so much is unpredictable, we hope that this technology will bring a little peace of mind.

Money Mover Locate will be available automatically to all our users at no extra cost. We will be rolling it out over the next few weeks, so look out for more details from the Support Team.