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"SWIFT" meaning Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication

I need to read some files and insert the data in a SQL Server database table using C#.NET. The files are downloaded from a banking software (ABN Amro), and they contain (debit & credit) movements on the account.

It contains a lot of :61: and :86: "tags", it seems almost human readable, but it's not, especially when they're talking amounts, it's impossible to filter those out if you don't have the correct specs.

I'm searching like crazy but I can't find enough information, I mean a document that explains how to interprete these messages/files? Not even on swiftcommunity.net... or maybe I'm not looking on the right spot.

Does that exists, and where?

John Lemberger
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Michael Bruyninckx
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2 Answers2

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The Swift mt940 file format has a header line, a footer line, some mandatory lines with information and then a bunch of lines meaning transactions. The lines start with a :XX: code to indicate what type of line it is.

If you google you can find the spec quite easy from a number of banks. for example:

Filip De Vos
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  • +1 That should get him going. IT is a "RTFM" case, but sometimes the manual is just not that easy to find. – TomTom Jan 17 '13 at 09:19
  • @TomTom: indeed, I know it's a RTFM, but if you don't know what manual is the right one to read, it's really hard to RTFM ;) – Michael Bruyninckx Jan 17 '13 at 09:46
  • @Filip De Vos: thanks man ! If I knew that it's an MT940 file format I would have found it already... so thank you for clearing out that one ! – Michael Bruyninckx Jan 17 '13 at 09:48
  • Welcome to the wonderful world of bank transmission formats. – Filip De Vos Jan 17 '13 at 09:49
  • Ideally you should subscribe to the Swift newsletters. They like to change the format every now and then. http://www.swift.com/support/drc/index.page? – Filip De Vos Jan 17 '13 at 09:52
  • The bank has to follow that change too then ;). But I'll do, thanks :) – Michael Bruyninckx Jan 17 '13 at 10:08
  • @MichaelBruyninckx This is why I did not complaint and upvoted the answer. Especially if you do not even know how the damn format is NAMED - SWIFT is not a good search term in google. Way too much noice. Even "SWIFT file format" likely leads to a lot of external stuff. – TomTom Jan 17 '13 at 10:18
  • I knew that it was SWIFT, but "SWIFT" seems to be soooo much more than just one template to form message... I tried even "swift" and ":61:" or "swift" and ":86:" but never found anything that I searched for. I knew that it was swift because the extension of the file was SWIFT :) – Michael Bruyninckx Jan 17 '13 at 12:23
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Maybe I am too late but I actually build an opensource library for this (http://raptorious.com/sharpmt940lib/). Maybe it can assist you?

Jaco
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