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Field 70 is the Remittance Information on an MT103 — the payment narrative visible on the beneficiary's bank statement. Draft an MT103 with structured remittance info →
Format: up to 4 lines of 35 characters each, using the SWIFT X character set (letters, digits, and the special characters / - ? : ( ) . , ' + space and line break). Characters outside this set — umlauts, accented characters, emoji, currency symbols other than those in the character set — must be transliterated to ASCII equivalents before inclusion in field 70, or the message will be rejected or the content garbled at a downstream bank that enforces strict character-set validation.
Best practice is to use structured tags at the start of each line to allow the beneficiary's accounts-receivable system to automatically parse and reconcile the payment: /INV/ followed by the invoice number (e.g. /INV/INV-2024-0001); /RFB/ followed by a beneficiary-assigned reference number (reference forwarded from the beneficiary back to the sender); /ROC/ for a remittance origin code (a structured identifier defined bilaterally between trading partners); /PO/ for a purchase order number. These tags are aligned with ISO 20022 remittance data structures and are recognised by most major ERP systems.
The 140-character total limit (4 × 35) is a well-known constraint of MT103 field 70. Many business payments have complex remittance requirements that cannot be captured in 140 characters — multiple invoice references, credit note offsets, partial payment allocations. One workaround is to include a URL or document reference in field 70 pointing to a structured remittance data file (e.g. a PAIN.001 or EDI-820 remittance advice), though not all banks support URL pass-through reliably. The proper solution is migration to ISO 20022 pacs.008, which has an effectively unlimited structured remittance capability.
Compliance consideration: correspondent banks run their payment-screening algorithms over field 70 content as well as over party names. An innocent payment with field 70 content containing "crude oil - invoice 1234" may trigger a manual hold at a US correspondent bank because "crude oil" pattern-matches against commodities-related sanctions compliance filters. Similarly, references to sanctioned country names in field 70 (even in a legitimate commercial context) can trigger holds. Use neutral invoice reference codes rather than descriptive trade terms in field 70 to minimise false-positive compliance screening.
In ISO 20022 pacs.008, the equivalent of field 70 is the RmtInf (Remittance Information) element with two sub-elements: Ustrd (Unstructured, up to 140 characters of free text — equivalent to field 70 in capacity) and Strd (Structured, with no practical character limit — allows multiple CdtrRefInf elements each carrying a creditor reference type, reference number, and debtor reference, plus a URL to an invoice document via RfrdDocInf). This structured remittance capability enables fully automated, validated invoice reconciliation at the beneficiary's ERP, eliminating the need for manual matching of incoming payments.
| Example value | :70:/INV/2025-12345 |
|---|---|
| Valid characters / format | 4 lines x 35 chars unstructured |
| Required on MT103 | Optional |
| Required on MT202 | Not used |
| Required on pacs.008 | Optional |
| Notes | Remittance information. ISO 20022 supports 9,000 chars structured. |
4 lines × 35 characters = 140 characters maximum. ISO 20022 pacs.008 RmtInf/Ustrd has the same 140-character limit for unstructured text, but the structured RmtInf/Strd option has no practical character limit.
Technically yes if it fits within 35 characters per line, but many banks strip or warn on URL-like content in field 70 due to anti-phishing and compliance policies. A structured invoice reference code (/INV/12345) is far more reliable than a URL for automated reconciliation.
Some correspondent banks truncate or strip field 70 when reformatting the SWIFT message, particularly if it contains characters outside the SWIFT X set. Additionally, translation between MT and ISO 20022 may alter field 70 content. In ISO 20022 environments, remittance information in the structured RmtInf/Strd format is preserved much more reliably.
Field 70 (Remittance Information) is the customer-facing payment narrative — it appears on the beneficiary's bank statement and is intended for the beneficiary. Field 72 (Sender to Receiver Information) contains bank-to-bank operational instructions — not shown to customers, visible only to the processing banks.
The most common structured tags are: /INV/ = invoice number (e.g. /INV/INV-2024-0001); /RFB/ = reference forwarded from the beneficiary (their payment reference); /ROC/ = remittance origin code; /PO/ = purchase order number. These are aligned with ISO 20022 remittance data structures. Each tag starts on a new line and the content follows immediately after the closing slash.
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