| Field | Meaning | Required |
|---|---|---|
:20: | A unique reference assigned by the sending bank for this statement message. It identifies the statement for tracking and duplicate detection. The customer uses | M |
:21: | The related reference linking this statement to a prior request or agreement, when the statement was sent on request. It helps the customer match the statement | O |
:25: | The account the statement covers, identified by account number with the account owner name. It tells the customer system which ledger account to reconcile. A st | M |
:28C: | The statement number and sequence number that identify this statement in a series. They let the customer detect a missing or duplicate statement. The numbers mu | M |
:60F: | The opening balance of the account for the statement period, with the credit or debit mark, value date, currency and amount. It is the closing balance of the pr | M |
:60M: | An additional opening balance when the statement covers an intraday period or a balance was corrected. It carries the same format as the first opening balance. | O |
:61: | One entry in the statement, representing a single debit or credit with value date, entry date, amount, funds code and narrative. A statement can hold many entri | O |
:86: | Supplementary details for a statement line, giving extra information such as the end to end reference or a narrative description. It can carry the beneficiary n | O |
:62F: | The closing balance of the account for the statement period, with the credit or debit mark, value date, currency and amount. It is the opening balance plus all | M |
:62M: | An additional closing balance when the statement covers an intraday period or a balance was corrected. It carries the same format as the first closing balance. | O |
:64: | A forward available balance showing funds expected to be available on a future date, with the credit or debit mark, date, currency and amount. It helps the cust | O |
:65: | A forward available balance for a later date, with the same format as the first available balance. It shows the expected balance after future dated entries are | O |
Meridian Bank sends an MT940 to a corporate customer for account 77012345 covering 5 November 2026, opening balance EUR 120,000.00, with 14 entries including a credit of EUR 48,250.00 for a supplier receipt. The closing balance is EUR 168,250.00, the control totals agree, and the customer reconciles every entry to its ledger.
Valid example from the message catalogue. Scheme rules: MT940 follows the SWIFT statement rules and remains widely used for customer account reporting, even where ISO 20022 reporting is available. Many banks still send MT940 daily because corporate reconci
MT940 Customer Statement in Detail
What you will learn
Your objective. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain MT940 customer statement. The MT940 Customer Statement Message is sent by an account servicing bank to its customer, or to another bank on behalf of a customer, to provide a statement of the account for a defined period, usually one business day.
Why it matters. A statement line for EUR 85,000 with no narrative is almost useless to a reconciliation analyst, who must guess whether it is a supplier refund, a customer payment or an intercompany transfer.
Chapter objective: Learner explains MT940 and MT950 statements, MT910 confirmations, and how opening, closing booked, closing available and forward balances are calculated. Learner uses real examples with amounts, banks and message names to show how the topic works in practice.
Key learning points
- MT940 Customer Statement Message
- MT940 begins with header fields
- Body of the MT940
- Field 86
- MT940 ends with the closing
- Discipline: makes MT940 reliable enough
Key terms
Remittance information: Information that explains what a payment is for, such as invoice numbers, contract references or salary month.
Reconciliation: The process of comparing records from two sources, such as a bank statement and an internal ledger, to confirm they agree.
Value date: The date on which funds become available to the beneficiary and on which interest starts to accrue. It is the date used for settlement and for nostro posting.
SWIFT MT message viewer showing MT940 Customer Statement in Detail.
Practise this lesson
Exercise
Investigate the reconciliation break described in this lesson and find its root cause.
Use the three-way matching rule and the break categories in this lesson.
- What to do. Compare the instruction, the settlement record and the statement, name the break type, and state the corrective action.
Correct result. A break is found by matching amount, currency, date and reference across the three sources. The root cause is a timing difference, an amount difference, a missing entry, or a duplicate, and the corrective action follows the cause.
Why. Reconciliation is the last line of defence. A break that is not investigated is money that cannot be proved.
Check your understanding
Practice question
Which of the following best describes MT940 customer statement?
Takeaway and next step
What to remember
That discipline is what makes the MT940 reliable enough to feed automated reconciliation for millions of lines a day.
Open the message type from this lesson and inspect its fields, then find the field that carries the amount.
Open the ISO 20022 Message Explorer →
Builds on "MT910 Confirmation of Credit in Detail".
Transcript and full text
Show transcript
The MT940 Customer Statement Message is sent by an account servicing bank to its customer, or to another bank on behalf of a customer, to provide a statement of the account for a defined period, usually one business day. The sender is the bank that holds the account, for example Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, and the receiver is the account holder or its treasury system. The statement covers a single account, in a single currency, for a single statement period, and it lists every credit and debit posted in that period. A corporate with 40 accounts receives 40 separate MT940 messages each morning, one per account. The MT940 begins with header fields that identify the account and the period. Field 20 gives the transaction reference number for the statement. Field 21 gives the related reference if the statement is part of a sequence. Field 25 gives the account number, for example DE89 3707 0060 0123 4567 89. Field 28C gives the statement number and the sequence number, for example 142 slash 1, which tells the receiver that this is statement 142 and the first message in the sequence. Field 60a gives the opening balance, and Field 62a gives the closing balance, both of which are explained in detail in a later section. The body of the MT940 is a series of Field 61 statement lines, one per transaction, followed by Field 86 information to account owner lines that give narrative detail. Each Field 61 line gives the value date, the entry date, the debit or credit mark, the funds code, the amount, the transaction type code and the reference. A typical line might show value date 3 November 2026, credit, EUR 320,000, transaction type NTRF, reference pacs.008 DE 88412. The following Field 86 line gives the narrative, such as payment from Schneider GmbH, invoice 2026 7741, which lets the treasury system match the entry to the right invoice automatically. Field 86 is where the practical value of the MT940 lives, because it carries the remittance information that a bare amount cannot. A statement line for EUR 85,000 with no narrative is almost useless to a reconciliation analyst, who must guess whether it is a supplier refund, a customer payment or an intercompany transfer. A Field 86 line that reads payment from Acme Trading Ltd, invoice 8841, EUR 85,000, value 3 November 2026, lets the system match the entry in seconds. Banks vary in how much detail they put in Field 86, and corporates often negotiate the content with their bank, because richer narrative means higher straight through reconciliation rates. The MT940 ends with the closing balance in Field 62a, and optionally the closing available balance in Field 64 and the forward available balance in Field 65. The receiver system checks that the statement is complete by verifying the sequence number in Field 28C, then checks that the opening balance matches the previous statement closing balance, then processes each Field 61 line, and finally checks that the calculated closing balance equals Field 62a. If any check fails, the statement is rejected and the bank is asked to resend it. That discipline is what makes the MT940 reliable enough to feed automated reconciliation for millions of lines a day.
The MT940 Customer Statement Message is sent by an account servicing bank to its customer, or to another bank on behalf of a customer, to provide a statement of the account for a defined period, usually one business day. The sender is the bank that holds the account, for example Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, and the receiver is the account holder or its treasury system. The statement covers a single account, in a single currency, for a single statement period, and it lists every credit and debit posted in that period. A corporate with 40 accounts receives 40 separate MT940 messages each morning, one per account.
The MT940 begins with header fields that identify the account and the period. Field 20 gives the transaction reference number for the statement. Field 21 gives the related reference if the statement is part of a sequence. Field 25 gives the account number, for example DE89 3707 0060 0123 4567 89. Field 28C gives the statement number and the sequence number, for example 142 slash 1, which tells the receiver that this is statement 142 and the first message in the sequence. Field 60a gives the opening balance, and Field 62a gives the closing balance, both of which are explained in detail in a later section.
The body of the MT940 is a series of Field 61 statement lines, one per transaction, followed by Field 86 information to account owner lines that give narrative detail. Each Field 61 line gives the value date, the entry date, the debit or credit mark, the funds code, the amount, the transaction type code and the reference. A typical line might show value date 3 November 2026, credit, EUR 320,000, transaction type NTRF, reference pacs.008 DE 88412. The following Field 86 line gives the narrative, such as payment from Schneider GmbH, invoice 2026 7741, which lets the treasury system match the entry to the right invoice automatically.
Field 86 is where the practical value of the MT940 lives, because it carries the remittance information that a bare amount cannot. A statement line for EUR 85,000 with no narrative is almost useless to a reconciliation analyst, who must guess whether it is a supplier refund, a customer payment or an intercompany transfer. A Field 86 line that reads payment from Acme Trading Ltd, invoice 8841, EUR 85,000, value 3 November 2026, lets the system match the entry in seconds. Banks vary in how much detail they put in Field 86, and corporates often negotiate the content with their bank, because richer narrative means higher straight through reconciliation rates.
The MT940 ends with the closing balance in Field 62a, and optionally the closing available balance in Field 64 and the forward available balance in Field 65. The receiver system checks that the statement is complete by verifying the sequence number in Field 28C, then checks that the opening balance matches the previous statement closing balance, then processes each Field 61 line, and finally checks that the calculated closing balance equals Field 62a. If any check fails, the statement is rejected and the bank is asked to resend it. That discipline is what makes the MT940 reliable enough to feed automated reconciliation for millions of lines a day.
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