Payments Training Hub
Business process modelling PAYMENT OPERATIONS STARTED LIVE 01 Business process modelling - turns a spoken description of how payments ACTIVE 02 BPMN - which stands for Business Process Model QUEUED 03 Swimlane diagrams - most useful format for payments QUEUED 04 As-Is cross-border payment - Consider an As-Is cross-border payment QUEUED 05 To-Be model - removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED 06 Good process model - validated with the people who do the work QUEUED Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments work into a diagram that everyone can read, challenge and agree on. Step 1 of 6 Business process modelling STARTED Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments ACTIVE BPMN which stands for Business Process Model QUEUED Swimlane diagrams most useful format for payments QUEUED As-Is cross-border payment Consider an As-Is cross-border payment QUEUED To-Be model removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED Good process model validated with the people who do the work QUEUED Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments work into a diagram that everyone can read, challenge and agree on.
BPMN: standard language PAYMENT OPERATIONS IN PROGRESS LIVE 01 Business process modelling - turns a spoken description of how payments DONE 02 BPMN - which stands for Business Process Model ACTIVE 03 Swimlane diagrams - most useful format for payments QUEUED 04 As-Is cross-border payment - Consider an As-Is cross-border payment QUEUED 05 To-Be model - removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED 06 Good process model - validated with the people who do the work QUEUED BPMN, which stands for Business Process Model and Notation, is the standard language for these diagrams. Step 2 of 6 BPMN: standard language IN PROGRESS Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments DONE BPMN which stands for Business Process Model ACTIVE Swimlane diagrams most useful format for payments QUEUED As-Is cross-border payment Consider an As-Is cross-border payment QUEUED To-Be model removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED Good process model validated with the people who do the work QUEUED BPMN, which stands for Business Process Model and Notation, is the standard language for these diagrams.
Swimlane diagrams PAYMENT OPERATIONS IN PROGRESS LIVE 01 Business process modelling - turns a spoken description of how payments DONE 02 BPMN - which stands for Business Process Model DONE 03 Swimlane diagrams - most useful format for payments ACTIVE 04 As-Is cross-border payment - Consider an As-Is cross-border payment QUEUED 05 To-Be model - removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED 06 Good process model - validated with the people who do the work QUEUED Swimlane diagrams are the most useful format for payments, because a single payment crosses many teams. Step 3 of 6 Swimlane diagrams IN PROGRESS Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments DONE BPMN which stands for Business Process Model DONE Swimlane diagrams most useful format for payments ACTIVE As-Is cross-border payment Consider an As-Is cross-border payment QUEUED To-Be model removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED Good process model validated with the people who do the work QUEUED Swimlane diagrams are the most useful format for payments, because a single payment crosses many teams.
As-Is cross-border payment PAYMENT OPERATIONS IN PROGRESS LIVE 01 Business process modelling - turns a spoken description of how payments DONE 02 BPMN - which stands for Business Process Model DONE 03 Swimlane diagrams - most useful format for payments DONE 04 As-Is cross-border payment - Consider an As-Is cross-border payment ACTIVE 05 To-Be model - removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED 06 Good process model - validated with the people who do the work QUEUED Consider an As-Is cross-border payment of 125,000 US dollars from a corporate customer at a bank in Mumbai to a supplier in Germany. Step 4 of 6 As-Is cross-border payment IN PROGRESS Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments DONE BPMN which stands for Business Process Model DONE Swimlane diagrams most useful format for payments DONE As-Is cross-border payment Consider an As-Is cross-border payment ACTIVE To-Be model removes the paper and the re-keying. QUEUED Good process model validated with the people who do the work QUEUED Consider an As-Is cross-border payment of 125,000 US dollars from a corporate customer at a bank in Mumbai to a supplier in Germany.
To-Be model for the same payment PAYMENT OPERATIONS IN PROGRESS LIVE 01 Business process modelling - turns a spoken description of how payments DONE 02 BPMN - which stands for Business Process Model DONE 03 Swimlane diagrams - most useful format for payments DONE 04 As-Is cross-border payment - Consider an As-Is cross-border payment DONE 05 To-Be model - removes the paper and the re-keying. ACTIVE 06 Good process model - validated with the people who do the work QUEUED The To-Be model for the same payment removes the paper and the re-keying. Step 5 of 6 To-Be model for the same payment IN PROGRESS Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments DONE BPMN which stands for Business Process Model DONE Swimlane diagrams most useful format for payments DONE As-Is cross-border payment Consider an As-Is cross-border payment DONE To-Be model removes the paper and the re-keying. ACTIVE Good process model validated with the people who do the work QUEUED The To-Be model for the same payment removes the paper and the re-keying.
Good process model PAYMENT OPERATIONS COMPLETE LIVE 01 Business process modelling - turns a spoken description of how payments DONE 02 BPMN - which stands for Business Process Model DONE 03 Swimlane diagrams - most useful format for payments DONE 04 As-Is cross-border payment - Consider an As-Is cross-border payment DONE 05 To-Be model - removes the paper and the re-keying. DONE 06 Good process model - validated with the people who do the work ACTIVE A good process model is validated with the people who do the work, not just with managers. Step 6 of 6 Good process model COMPLETE Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments DONE BPMN which stands for Business Process Model DONE Swimlane diagrams most useful format for payments DONE As-Is cross-border payment Consider an As-Is cross-border payment DONE To-Be model removes the paper and the re-keying. DONE Good process model validated with the people who do the work ACTIVE A good process model is validated with the people who do the work, not just with managers.

Key points of this lesson, in order.

0:00 / 3:26 Step 1 of 6

Business Process Modelling: As-Is and To-Be Flows

BA Practical Workshop, Lesson 2 of 7, Narration 3:26, D14 Business analysis and professional practice

Sanctions screeningPurpose codePayment hub

What you will learn

Your objective. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain business process modelling: as-is and to-be flows. Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments work into a diagram that everyone can read, challenge and agree on.

Why it matters. The analyst always models the As-Is process first, which is how the payment flows today, including every manual step, every workaround and every delay.

Chapter objective: Learner applies business analysis techniques to a payments project, writing requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and a traceability matrix for a real payment feature. Learner applies this skill in realistic banking scenarios, with clear examples and correct terminology throughout.

Key learning points

  • Business process modelling
  • BPMN: standard language
  • Swimlane diagrams
  • As-Is cross-border payment
  • To-Be model for the same payment
  • Good process model

Key terms

Sanctions screening: Checking payment parties, countries and references against sanctions lists published by governments and international bodies.

Purpose code: A code that states the commercial reason for a payment, such as supplier payment, salary or goods. Purpose codes are taken from an ISO external code list and support regulatory reporting, screening...

Payment hub: A central system in a bank that receives payment instructions from all channels, validates them, applies screening and routing rules, and sends them to the correct clearing system or correspondent.

Clearing and settlement timeline showing Business Process Modelling: As-Is and To-Be Flows.

Insights and practice scenarios

Worked insights and practice scenarios for this lesson. Each one is a reusable PaymentForge case, so the same case may appear in more than one lesson.

Practise this lesson

Exercise

Decide what the screening or monitoring outcome should be for the scenario in this lesson.

Use the lists, rules and thresholds in this lesson.

  1. What to do. State whether the payment is stopped, held, frozen or released, and what must be recorded for audit.

Correct result. A true match against a sanctions list stops the payment. A false positive is cleared with a reason recorded. An alert that is escalated becomes a case, and a case that meets the threshold becomes a suspicious activity report.

Why. Screening is a control, not a suggestion. A missed true match is a regulatory breach, and an unexplained clearance is an audit finding.

Check your understanding

Practice question

A business stakeholder says a new payment feature must be fast and user friendly. The BA must turn this into requirements. What is the right first step?

Takeaway and next step

What to remember

The analyst always models the As-Is process first, which is how the payment flows today, including every manual step, every workaround and every delay.

Map the message fields from this lesson in the mapping workbench.

Open the Mapping Workbench →

Builds on "Requirements Gathering for Payments Projects".

Transcript and full text

Show transcript

Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments work into a diagram that everyone can read, challenge and agree on. The analyst always models the As-Is process first, which is how the payment flows today, including every manual step, every workaround and every delay. Only after the As-Is model is signed off does the analyst draw the To-Be model, which shows how the process should work after the project. Skipping the As-Is step is a common mistake, because a team that does not understand its current process cannot design a better one. BPMN, which stands for Business Process Model and Notation, is the standard language for these diagrams. A rounded rectangle represents a task, a diamond represents a decision or gateway, a circle represents an event such as the start or end of a process, and arrows show the sequence of flow. For payments work, the analyst needs only a small subset of BPMN symbols, but must use them consistently so that a reader in operations, IT or audit interprets the diagram the same way. Every diagram carries a title, a version number and the name of the process owner. Swimlane diagrams are the most useful format for payments, because a single payment crosses many teams. Each lane belongs to one team or system, such as the branch, the payment operations team, the sanctions screening system, the payment hub and the nostro agent bank. The payment moves from lane to lane as it is captured, validated, screened, released and settled. When the analyst lays the flow out this way, the handoffs become visible, and handoffs are exactly where payments get delayed, duplicated or lost. Consider an As-Is cross-border payment of 125,000 US dollars from a corporate customer at a bank in Mumbai to a supplier in Germany. The branch captures the instruction on paper, a clerk keys it into the payment system, operations checks the balance and the purpose code, the message goes to sanctions screening, and if it clears, the payment hub sends an MT103 to the nostro bank. The whole journey takes six hours and involves three manual re-keying steps, each of which can introduce an error such as a wrong account number or a missing field 70 remittance line. The To-Be model for the same payment removes the paper and the re-keying. The corporate customer submits the instruction through the online banking portal, the portal validates the IBAN and the purpose code before submission, the payment hub enriches the message automatically, sanctions screening runs in under two minutes, and the MT103 is released straight through. The target end-to-end time drops from six hours to under thirty minutes, and the only manual touch is an exception queue for payments that fail validation or hit a sanctions alert. A good process model is validated with the people who do the work, not just with managers. The analyst walks the operations team through the As-Is diagram step by step and asks whether each task, decision and handoff matches reality. Invariably the team corrects details, such as a second approval that only applies above 1,000,000 rupees, or a manual check that happens every Friday. These corrections are added to the diagram before sign-off, because a model that does not match reality will produce requirements that do not match reality either.

Business process modelling turns a spoken description of how payments work into a diagram that everyone can read, challenge and agree on. The analyst always models the As-Is process first, which is how the payment flows today, including every manual step, every workaround and every delay. Only after the As-Is model is signed off does the analyst draw the To-Be model, which shows how the process should work after the project. Skipping the As-Is step is a common mistake, because a team that does not understand its current process cannot design a better one.

BPMN, which stands for Business Process Model and Notation, is the standard language for these diagrams. A rounded rectangle represents a task, a diamond represents a decision or gateway, a circle represents an event such as the start or end of a process, and arrows show the sequence of flow. For payments work, the analyst needs only a small subset of BPMN symbols, but must use them consistently so that a reader in operations, IT or audit interprets the diagram the same way. Every diagram carries a title, a version number and the name of the process owner.

Swimlane diagrams are the most useful format for payments, because a single payment crosses many teams. Each lane belongs to one team or system, such as the branch, the payment operations team, the sanctions screening system, the payment hub and the nostro agent bank. The payment moves from lane to lane as it is captured, validated, screened, released and settled. When the analyst lays the flow out this way, the handoffs become visible, and handoffs are exactly where payments get delayed, duplicated or lost.

Consider an As-Is cross-border payment of 125,000 US dollars from a corporate customer at a bank in Mumbai to a supplier in Germany. The branch captures the instruction on paper, a clerk keys it into the payment system, operations checks the balance and the purpose code, the message goes to sanctions screening, and if it clears, the payment hub sends an MT103 to the nostro bank. The whole journey takes six hours and involves three manual re-keying steps, each of which can introduce an error such as a wrong account number or a missing field 70 remittance line.

The To-Be model for the same payment removes the paper and the re-keying. The corporate customer submits the instruction through the online banking portal, the portal validates the IBAN and the purpose code before submission, the payment hub enriches the message automatically, sanctions screening runs in under two minutes, and the MT103 is released straight through. The target end-to-end time drops from six hours to under thirty minutes, and the only manual touch is an exception queue for payments that fail validation or hit a sanctions alert.

A good process model is validated with the people who do the work, not just with managers. The analyst walks the operations team through the As-Is diagram step by step and asks whether each task, decision and handoff matches reality. Invariably the team corrects details, such as a second approval that only applies above 1,000,000 rupees, or a manual check that happens every Friday. These corrections are added to the diagram before sign-off, because a model that does not match reality will produce requirements that do not match reality either.

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