Investigation: the charges discrepancy

A charges discrepancy investigation starts when the beneficiary receives less than the sender expected, and the difference is the charges deducted along the way, and the sender wants to know who deducted what, and whether the deduction was correct. The charges arrangement, OUR, SHA or BEN, decides who pays, and a discrepancy usually means the arrangement was not followed, or a bank deducted a charge it was not entitled to, or the sender did not understand the arrangement they chose. Source: SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; ISO 20022 pacs.008 charge bearer and charge amount fields; Paiementor articles on OUR, SHA and BEN. Why charges discrepancies happen is that the arrangement is a promise, and each bank in the chain must keep it, but the promise is carried in a field, and a field can be lost, misread or ignored. Under OUR, the sender pays all charges, so the beneficiary should receive the full amount, and any deduction by an intermediary is an error. Under BEN, the beneficiary pays all charges, so the beneficiary receives less, and the deduction is correct, but the sender may not have understood that when they chose BEN. The most common discrepancy is therefore not an error at all, it is a sender who chose BEN and expected the beneficiary to receive the full amount, and the investigation must explain the arrangement, not just find the deduction. The parties are the debtor bank, which set the arrangement, the intermediary banks, which should have followed it, the creditor bank, which deducted its own charges where entitled, and the beneficiary, who received less. The enquiry messages are pacs.028 to ask each bank what it deducted, and in the legacy MT world MT199 to ask the same question in free format, and MT192 where a charge must be reclaimed. The answer is a statement of the charges deducted by that bank, with the amount and the reason, and the investigation must collect the answer from every bank in the chain, because a single bank answer does not prove the total. How the investigation runs is shown by a worked example. A company in Paris sends EUR 60,000 to a supplier in Singapore under OUR, so the supplier should receive EUR 60,000 in full, but the supplier receives EUR 59,940, a shortfall of EUR 60. The Paris bank sends pacs.028. The investigation shows that both deductions were errors under OUR, because the sender had paid all charges upfront, so the Paris bank reclaims EUR 40 from the intermediary and EUR 20 from the Singapore bank, credits EUR 60 to the supplier, and the case closes with the supplier whole and the two banks reminded of the OUR rule. The total time was four days, and the cost was the staff time, not the EUR 60. On success every deduction is traced, the errors are reclaimed, the beneficiary is made whole, and the case closes with a note recording which bank deducted what and why. On failure a bank in the chain does not answer, or claims its deduction was correct when it was not, and then the investigation must escalate through the relationship manager, and the bank may have to absorb the shortfall itself to keep the customer, because a customer who is told the bank cannot recover EUR 60 will not be reassured by the amount. The most expensive failure is a discrepancy that is never investigated, because the beneficiary simply accepts the shortfall, and the bank that deducted in error learns that it can do so without consequence, and does it again. The data the investigation needs is the charge bearer, OUR, SHA or BEN, the charges deducted by each bank, the amount and currency of each deduction, the UETR, and the original amount. The charge bearer is the field that matters most, because it decides whether each deduction was correct, and a payment whose charge bearer was lost in translation will be investigated as if it were SHA, when it was really OUR, and the answer will be wrong. A BA must require the charge bearer to be carried through every translation, must specify the charge reclaim process, and must specify the customer message, because a customer who is told the beneficiary received less must also be told why, and whether the bank will recover it. Edge cases show the depth. A GOUR arrangement, where the sender guarantees the OUR charges, adds a guarantee fee, and the investigation must check whether the guarantee was honoured, because a GOUR payment that arrives short has breached the guarantee, not just the arrangement. A payment in a currency that needs conversion may lose money on the exchange rate, not on charges, and the investigation must separate the FX loss from the charge deduction, because the two have different owners. A payment where the beneficiary bank deducted a charge for a service the beneficiary did not ask for, such as a manual repair, must be investigated as a service charge, not as a chain charge, and the beneficiary bank must justify it. The effect on the bank is a reclaim process that recovers small amounts at a cost that often exceeds the amount, so the bank must decide when to reclaim and when to absorb, and must record the decision. The effect on the customer is a supplier who is paid in full, or a supplier who is short and must be topped up, and the difference is the relationship. The effect on operations is a queue of small discrepancies, each needing a trace through the chain, and a manager who can see which banks deduct in error most often, and can raise it with them. What a BA, PO or SME must understand is that a charges discrepancy is a trace of deductions against the arrangement, and the arrangement is the contract. The requirement must name the charge bearer handling, the deduction recording, the reclaim process and the customer message. The test is to take one payment where the beneficiary received less, trace every deduction, and state for each one whether it was correct under the arrangement, because if the trace cannot be completed, the investigation is not finished. Further reading: SWIFT CBPR+ usage guidelines; ISO 20022 pacs.008 charge bearer; Paiementor articles on OUR, SHA and BEN. Last reviewed 7 November 2026.