Payments Training Hub
Delayed payment investigation 1 NOW Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data A delayed payment investigation starts when a payment that should have arrived by its value date has not arrived Step 1 of 6 Delayed payment investigation 1 NOW Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data A delayed payment investigation starts when a payment that should have arrived by its value date has not arrived Step 1 of 6
Delay causes in order 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 NOW Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data Why payments are delayed is a short list, and the investigation must check each item in order. Step 2 of 6 Delay causes in order 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 NOW Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data Why payments are delayed is a short list, and the investigation must check each item in order. Step 2 of 6
Parties in the chain 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 NOW Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data The parties are the debtor bank, which sent the payment, the intermediary banks, which forwarded it, the creditor bank, which should have credited it, and the beneficiary, who is waiting. Step 3 of 6 Parties in the chain 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 NOW Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data The parties are the debtor bank, which sent the payment, the intermediary banks, which forwarded it, the creditor bank, which should have credited it, and the beneficiary, who is waiting. Step 3 of 6
Worked example of a delay 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 NOW Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data How the investigation runs is shown by a worked example. Step 4 of 6 Worked example of a delay 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 NOW Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data How the investigation runs is shown by a worked example. Step 4 of 6
Resolution and customer communication 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 NOW Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data On success the cause is found, the customer is told the cause Step 5 of 6 Resolution and customer communication 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 NOW Resolution and customer communication 6 Investigation data On success the cause is found, the customer is told the cause Step 5 of 6
Investigation data 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 NOW Investigation data The data the investigation needs is the UETR, the value date, the status history with timestamps, the reason codes, and the cut-off times of each bank in the chain. Step 6 of 6 Investigation data 1 Delayed payment investigation 2 Delay causes in order 3 Parties in the chain 4 Worked 5 Resolution and customer communication 6 NOW Investigation data The data the investigation needs is the UETR, the value date, the status history with timestamps, the reason codes, and the cut-off times of each bank in the chain. Step 6 of 6

Exception workflow, step by step.

0:00 / 6:45 Step 1 of 6

Investigation: the delayed payment

Cross-border investigations, Lesson 4 of 10, Narration 6:45, D06 Cross-border payments

Sanctions screeningValue dateSettlement

What you will learn

Your objective. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain investigation: the delayed payment. A delayed payment investigation starts when a payment that should have arrived by its value date has not arrived, and the customer wants to know why, and the bank must give a factual answer, not a guess.

Why it matters. Takeaway: check the cut-off and the status history before opening a case, because a payment sent after cut-off is on time for the next business day.

Chapter objective: Finding a missing MT103, a missing MT202 COV, and every other cross-border failure

Key learning points

  • Delayed payment investigation
  • Delay causes in order
  • Parties in the chain
  • Worked example of a delay
  • Resolution and customer communication
  • Investigation data

Key terms

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

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.

Settlement: The final movement of funds between banks to discharge obligations created by cleared payments. Settlement is usually made in central bank money or through correspondent accounts.

Exception investigation workflow showing Investigation: the delayed payment.

Practise this lesson

Exercise

A company in Paris pays a supplier in Mumbai USD 95,000 on Monday, value date Monday, and on Tuesday the supplier has not been credited. Work out the investigation.

Use pacs.028 hop by hop and read the pacs.002 status codes, then find which team holds the payment.

  1. What to do. State the cause, the expected release, and what the customer is told.

Correct result. The correspondent replies ACSP, the next bank says the payment is held for sanctions screening and will be released Wednesday, the customer is told the cause and the expected time, and the payment is credited Wednesday at 10:30, one day late.

Why. A delayed payment investigation is a status check, hop by hop, and the answer is the status code and the reason.

Check your understanding

Practice question

What does a pacs.002 status of ACSP mean?

Takeaway and next step

What to remember

Takeaway: check the cut-off and the status history before opening a case, because a payment sent after cut-off is on time for the next business day.

Follow USD 95,000 through every stage, from instruction to beneficiary credit, and note where it can stop.

Open the Payment Lifecycle Simulator →

Builds on "Investigation: the wrong intermediary".

Transcript and full text

Show transcript

A delayed payment investigation starts when a payment that should have arrived by its value date has not arrived, and the customer wants to know why, and the bank must give a factual answer, not a guess. A delay is different from a loss: the money exists, it is somewhere in the chain, and the investigation must find where it is and what is holding it, whether that is a compliance review, a liquidity queue, a system outage, or a bank that has not yet processed it. The investigation is the most common of all, because every payment that is late generates one, and the quality of the answer decides whether the customer waits patiently or escalates to a complaint. Source: SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; SWIFT gpi tracker guidance; ISO 20022 pacs.002 status codes. Why payments are delayed is a short list, and the investigation must check each item in order. The payment may be held for sanctions screening, because a name matched a list and a human must review it. It may be waiting for a cut-off, because it was sent after the receiving bank cut-off and will be processed the next business day. It may be held by a system outage, because a bank or a market infrastructure was down when the payment arrived. Or it may simply be slow, because a bank in the chain processes payments in batches and the payment missed the batch. Each cause has a different owner, a different fix and a different time to resolve, and the investigation that does not distinguish them will give the customer the wrong answer. The parties are the debtor bank, which sent the payment, the intermediary banks, which forwarded it, the creditor bank, which should have credited it, and the beneficiary, who is waiting. The enquiry message is pacs.028, which asks the next bank for the status, and the answer is pacs.002, which states the status code, such as ACSP for accepted settlement in progress, ACSC for settled, or ACCC for credited, and the status code is what tells the investigator where the payment is. In the legacy MT world the enquiry was MT199, and the answer was a free-format reply, which is why the ISO 20022 status codes are an improvement: they can be read by a system, aged, and escalated automatically. How the investigation runs is shown by a worked example. A company in Paris pays a supplier in Mumbai USD 95,000 on Monday at 09:00, value date Monday, and on Tuesday the supplier has not been credited. The Paris bank sends pacs.028 to its correspondent, which replies ACSP at 11:00, meaning the payment is accepted and settlement is in progress. The Paris bank sends pacs.028 to the next bank, which replies at 14:00 that the payment is held for sanctions screening, because the supplier name matched a list entry, and the review will take until Wednesday. The payment is released on Wednesday at 10:00 and credited at 10:30, one day late, and the case closes with the reason recorded. On success the cause is found, the customer is told the cause and the expected time, the payment is released, and the case closes with the reason recorded, so the next delay of the same kind is recognised faster. On failure the investigation cannot find the cause, because a bank in the chain does not answer the pacs.028, and then the requester must escalate to MT199 and then to a phone call, and the customer is told only that the bank is investigating, which is not an answer and will not satisfy a supplier who is waiting for USD 95,000. The most expensive failure is a delay that is never explained, because the customer assumes the bank has lost the money, and the relationship is damaged even though the money was safe all along. The data the investigation needs is the UETR, the value date, the status history with timestamps, the reason codes, and the cut-off times of each bank in the chain. The status history is the field that matters most, because a payment that shows ACSP for six hours is in transit, while a payment that shows no status update for six hours is stuck, and the difference decides whether to wait or to chase. A BA must require the status history to be stored with timestamps, must specify the pacs.028 trigger, usually a payment with no status update after a defined interval, and must specify the customer message for each cause, because a customer who is told the payment is held for compliance will wait, while a customer who is told only that it is delayed will complain. Edge cases show the depth. A payment that is delayed because it was sent after the cut-off is not really delayed, it is on time for the next business day, and the investigation must check the cut-off before it opens a case, or it will investigate a payment that is behaving normally. A payment that is delayed by a weekend is not delayed either, because the value date was Monday and the payment was sent on Friday, and the customer must be told the value date at instruction, not at investigation. A payment that is delayed by a compliance hold must not be described to the customer in a way that reveals the screening, because the screening is confidential, and the customer message must be factual without disclosing the match. The effect on the bank is a queue of delayed-payment cases, each needing a status check and a customer update, and a manager who can see which correspondents are slow and why. The effect on the customer is a supplier who is told the truth, or a supplier who is told nothing, and the difference is the relationship. The effect on operations is a discipline that every delayed payment gets a status check within a defined window, usually two hours, and a customer update at each step, because a customer who is updated will wait, and a customer who is not updated will escalate. What a BA, PO or SME must understand is that a delayed payment investigation is a status check, hop by hop, and the answer is the status code and the reason, not a guess. The requirement must name the pacs.028 trigger, the status codes, the customer messages per cause, and the escalation when a bank does not answer. The test is to take one delayed payment, trace its status history, and state the cause, the owner and the expected time, and if the cause cannot be stated, the investigation is not finished. Further reading: SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; ISO 20022 pacs.002 status codes; SWIFT gpi tracker guidance. Last reviewed 7 November 2026.

A delayed payment investigation starts when a payment that should have arrived by its value date has not arrived, and the customer wants to know why, and the bank must give a factual answer, not a guess. A delay is different from a loss: the money exists, it is somewhere in the chain, and the investigation must find where it is and what is holding it, whether that is a compliance review, a liquidity queue, a system outage, or a bank that has not yet processed it. The investigation is the most common of all, because every payment that is late generates one, and the quality of the answer decides whether the customer waits patiently or escalates to a complaint. Source: SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; SWIFT gpi tracker guidance; ISO 20022 pacs.002 status codes.

Why payments are delayed is a short list, and the investigation must check each item in order. The payment may be held for sanctions screening, because a name matched a list and a human must review it. It may be waiting for a cut-off, because it was sent after the receiving bank cut-off and will be processed the next business day. It may be held by a system outage, because a bank or a market infrastructure was down when the payment arrived. Or it may simply be slow, because a bank in the chain processes payments in batches and the payment missed the batch. Each cause has a different owner, a different fix and a different time to resolve, and the investigation that does not distinguish them will give the customer the wrong answer.

The parties are the debtor bank, which sent the payment, the intermediary banks, which forwarded it, the creditor bank, which should have credited it, and the beneficiary, who is waiting. The enquiry message is pacs.028, which asks the next bank for the status, and the answer is pacs.002, which states the status code, such as ACSP for accepted settlement in progress, ACSC for settled, or ACCC for credited, and the status code is what tells the investigator where the payment is. In the legacy MT world the enquiry was MT199, and the answer was a free-format reply, which is why the ISO 20022 status codes are an improvement: they can be read by a system, aged, and escalated automatically.

How the investigation runs is shown by a worked example. A company in Paris pays a supplier in Mumbai USD 95,000 on Monday at 09:00, value date Monday, and on Tuesday the supplier has not been credited. The Paris bank sends pacs.028 to its correspondent, which replies ACSP at 11:00, meaning the payment is accepted and settlement is in progress. The Paris bank sends pacs.028 to the next bank, which replies at 14:00 that the payment is held for sanctions screening, because the supplier name matched a list entry, and the review will take until Wednesday. The payment is released on Wednesday at 10:00 and credited at 10:30, one day late, and the case closes with the reason recorded.

On success the cause is found, the customer is told the cause and the expected time, the payment is released, and the case closes with the reason recorded, so the next delay of the same kind is recognised faster. On failure the investigation cannot find the cause, because a bank in the chain does not answer the pacs.028, and then the requester must escalate to MT199 and then to a phone call, and the customer is told only that the bank is investigating, which is not an answer and will not satisfy a supplier who is waiting for USD 95,000. The most expensive failure is a delay that is never explained, because the customer assumes the bank has lost the money, and the relationship is damaged even though the money was safe all along.

The data the investigation needs is the UETR, the value date, the status history with timestamps, the reason codes, and the cut-off times of each bank in the chain. The status history is the field that matters most, because a payment that shows ACSP for six hours is in transit, while a payment that shows no status update for six hours is stuck, and the difference decides whether to wait or to chase. A BA must require the status history to be stored with timestamps, must specify the pacs.028 trigger, usually a payment with no status update after a defined interval, and must specify the customer message for each cause, because a customer who is told the payment is held for compliance will wait, while a customer who is told only that it is delayed will complain.

Edge cases show the depth. A payment that is delayed because it was sent after the cut-off is not really delayed, it is on time for the next business day, and the investigation must check the cut-off before it opens a case, or it will investigate a payment that is behaving normally. A payment that is delayed by a weekend is not delayed either, because the value date was Monday and the payment was sent on Friday, and the customer must be told the value date at instruction, not at investigation. A payment that is delayed by a compliance hold must not be described to the customer in a way that reveals the screening, because the screening is confidential, and the customer message must be factual without disclosing the match.

The effect on the bank is a queue of delayed-payment cases, each needing a status check and a customer update, and a manager who can see which correspondents are slow and why. The effect on the customer is a supplier who is told the truth, or a supplier who is told nothing, and the difference is the relationship. The effect on operations is a discipline that every delayed payment gets a status check within a defined window, usually two hours, and a customer update at each step, because a customer who is updated will wait, and a customer who is not updated will escalate.

What a BA, PO or SME must understand is that a delayed payment investigation is a status check, hop by hop, and the answer is the status code and the reason, not a guess. The requirement must name the pacs.028 trigger, the status codes, the customer messages per cause, and the escalation when a bank does not answer. The test is to take one delayed payment, trace its status history, and state the cause, the owner and the expected time, and if the cause cannot be stated, the investigation is not finished. Further reading: SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; ISO 20022 pacs.002 status codes; SWIFT gpi tracker guidance. Last reviewed 7 November 2026.

Full lesson text (all scenes)

Completing a lesson updates your progress dashboard on the homepage.

Scene timestamps are estimated by allocating the narration text proportionally across the real audio length. The audio playback position is the source of truth: pause freezes the visual, seeking restores the correct scene, replay restarts the scene animation.