首页 › Ohmyfin 解答 SWIFT 国际汇款常见问题 › Why is my SWIFT payment delayed?
Ohmyfin 的回答如下（英文）。
The most common causes of SWIFT payment delays are: sanctions or compliance screening at an intermediary bank, missing or incorrect beneficiary details, weekend or bank-holiday cut-offs, queueing at smaller correspondent banks, and exotic currencies that route through fewer correspondents. Track the UETR on Ohmyfin to see exactly which bank is causing the delay.
Sanctions screening is the #1 cause of multi-day delays. Every bank in the chain (especially US-touched USD payments) screens sender, beneficiary, intermediaries and reference text against OFAC, EU, UK and UN sanctions lists. A name match — even a false positive — triggers manual review that adds 1-5 days.
Cut-off times: each bank has a daily SWIFT cut-off (often 16:00-18:00 local time). A payment received after cut-off processes the next business day. Friday afternoon payments often don't move until Monday.
Weekend / holidays: USD settlement closes Friday ~22:00 UTC and resumes Sunday ~23:00 UTC. Other currencies close for the local business week. Bank holidays at any country in the chain add a day.
Beneficiary data: missing IBAN, ambiguous beneficiary name, mismatched address, or wrong correspondent BIC all cause manual rework at each leg.
Exotic currencies (PKR, NGN, LKR, etc.) route through a smaller pool of correspondents — queues build up and add days.
Use Ohmyfin to track the UETR and see the exact bank holding the payment. That's the bank to investigate.