What is SWIFT?

SWIFT is an acronym that stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. It’s one of the largest financial messaging systems in the world to enable the movement of money from one country to another. It’s made up of mostly banks but also money brokers, non-financial institutions and clearing houses.

How does Neat use SWIFT?
Neat relies on the SWIFT network to support US Dollar payments to your payees outside of the US, such as China, Japan, Singapore. The moment you confirm your payment instructions, the SWIFT code allows us to quickly identify the receiving bank and send the payment there securely. However, to enable this there are often intermediary banks involved - how many depends on the destination country. It helps to think of it as taking a flight with a number of layovers versus a direct one!

Fees for SWIFT
To use the SWIFT network, fees are imposed by both the intermediary banks and the receiving bank. This is out of our control as each financial institution will levy different fees. When making payments with Neat, you can select to cover all the processing fees or simply Neat’s sending fee.

How long does it take?
SWIFT payments take 2-5 business days to reach your payee. However, this can fluctuate depending on time differences, or the number of intermediary banks involved. You can keep track of your payments easily via the dashboard.