What is the difference between MT900 and MT910?

Direction, and one field. MT900 confirms a debit — money that left the account — and MT910 confirms a credit. Neither carries a debit or credit mark, because the message type is the direction. MT910 can name the ordering customer in :50a: or the ordering institution in :52a:, which is how you learn who paid; MT900 has no ordering-customer field at all, because the account owner is the one being debited.

What is an MT941 used for?

Confirming a figure and nothing else. An MT941 is a balance report: it carries balances and no statement lines, so it answers how much and never why. It is useful for an account you hold a position on and do not reconcile line by line, and it is the wrong message to hand to a reconciliation, because there is nothing in it to match. If a screen built on one looks wrong there is no evidence inside the message to check it against.

Is an MT910 the same as the statement line?

It is the same movement, earlier, and often with more on it. The confirmation goes out as the bank books the credit; the statement line for it turns up on the MT940 that night. They are one economic event and they are counted once — :21: on the confirmation and the references on the statement line are what tie the two together. A system that counts both has doubled a credit, which is the quiet failure this family is best known for.

Which MT9xx message should I ask my bank for?

Start with what the account is for. One you reconcile needs MT940 every day. Watching a busy account through the day is what MT942 is for, with a floor limit of zero if the bank will set one. Where a single large movement matters, the MT900 and MT910 confirmations are the ones that buy you hours. An account you only hold a position on can live on MT941. Then ask your bank which of the five it actually produces for each account, because that is usually the shorter list.

Do MT900 and MT910 carry a balance?

No. A confirmation states one movement — value date, currency, amount, and the references that identify it. There is no balance tag in either message. What they buy is time: a confirmation lands as the movement is booked, hours before the statement it will appear on, and for a treasury team watching a large receipt those hours are the whole reason to ask for them.

SWIFT · the family

MT900, MT910, MT940, MT941, MT942 — which one to ask for

Five SWIFT messages report on one account and answer five different questions. A confirmation covers a single movement as the bank books it, in either direction. MT940 is the closed day. MT941 is a balance with no movements under it at all, and MT942 is what has moved since the last report. Ask for the wrong one and the screen is empty for a reason that takes a week to find.

The account every page here reads

EUR

Published by: SWIFT
What it carries: Five reporting messages on one account: two confirmations, a statement, a balance, an interim report.
Account: ES21 0049 0001 5323 4567 8901

Closing balance · Aug 14, 2026EUR 2,990,901.67

The definition

What the MT9xx family actually is

SWIFT’s category 9 — the messages a bank sends about an account it holds for you. The largest runs to hundreds of lines and the smallest is one movement.

MT9xx is the SWIFT category that reports on an account. MT900 confirms a single debit and MT910 a single credit, each as the bank books it, with :32A: carrying the value date, the currency and the amount and :21: tying the confirmation back to the transaction that caused it. MT940 is the closed statement, with an opening balance, every movement and a closing balance. MT941 is a balance report and carries no statement lines at all. MT942 is the interim transaction report, listing what has moved since the previous one above a floor limit. The account sits in :25: in every one of them.

Who sends it: Your bank, over the channel you already have with it, and usually not all five. A bank offers the ones its systems produce for the products you hold, which is why the first question is always what it sends rather than what the standard defines.
When it arrives: A confirmation goes out as the movement is booked, often within minutes. Balance reports run on a schedule, interim reports through the day, and the statement once the period closes. Four different clocks over one account.
What it looks like: Plain text, one tag to a line, the tags in a fixed order — the same grammar in all five. A confirmation is six lines and a statement is hundreds, and one parser reads both, which is the practical reason this family has survived as long as it has.

What its parts are called

MT900 vs MT910
MT910 :32A:
MT941 balance report
MT900 debit confirmation
MT9xx message types

The files

One credit, confirmed the moment the bank booked it

The MT910 for this library’s own incoming collection, and beside it the MT900 for one of the same day’s debits. Same account, same day, opposite directions, and neither of them says what the account holds.

MT9xxA credit confirmation — six lines, one movement, no balance

:20:CNFBK26081401
:21:4471QX
:25:ES2100490001532345678901
:32A:260815EUR182046,55
:50K:NORTE TESORERIA SL

MT900The debit for the same day. No ordering customer on it, because the account owner is the one being debited

:20:CNFBK26081402
:21:MD-88214
:25:ES2100490001532345678901
:32A:260814EUR42318,90
:52A:CAIXESBBXXX

Where each fact lives in this file

Which account it is: :25:
One movement, and which way it went: :32A: · 3
The day it was booked, and the day the money is yours: :32A: · 1
Who the money came from: :50K:
The reference that ties it to a payment: :20: · :21:

What comes out

A confirmation is early, and it is not a statement

It arrives hours before the statement line it will eventually become, often carrying more than that line turns out to. What it does not carry is a balance, and a position built on confirmations alone drifts the first time one is not sent.

Out of a confirmation we take the value date, the amount, the ordering party and the related reference in :21:, and that reference is the thing that matters most: it is what lets the confirmation this morning and the statement line tonight be recognized as one movement rather than two. Every economic event is counted once, and the confirmation is treated as early notice of an entry rather than as an entry of its own. Where a bank sends both, the position moves on the confirmation and the close is footed on the statement.

Then the two messages that answer half a question each. MT941 gives you a balance and no lines, so a figure that looks wrong has nothing behind it to check. MT942 gives you lines and no balance, so the movements are explained and the position is yours to keep. Either one on its own leaves a figure carrying half its evidence, which is why we read whichever your bank sends and keep the statement as the arbiter.

Format profiles · MT9xx

Which account it is:25:: ES21 0049 0001 5323 4567 8901
One movement, and which way it went:32A: · 3: EUR +182,046.55
The day it was booked, and the day the money is yours:32A: · 1: Aug 15, 2026
The reference that ties it to a payment:20: · :21:: 4471QX

Every value beside the tag it was read from, so the reading can be checked against the record above.

The right question is not which of these is best. It is which ones your bank already produces for your accounts, and what the set of them adds up to.

The two the family is usually reduced to

MT940 is the closed statement and the one nearly every bank sends. MT942 is the interim report, floor limit and all. CAMT.052 is what ISO 20022 offers in the same place, with the interim balances this half of the family does not carry.

Formats to read beside it

What reads it here

The same day written in four formats, side by side, is on Format library

Asked about MT9xx

The questions a practitioner actually types

01What is the difference between MT900 and MT910?: Direction, and one field. MT900 confirms a debit — money that left the account — and MT910 confirms a credit. Neither carries a debit or credit mark, because the message type is the direction. MT910 can name the ordering customer in :50a: or the ordering institution in :52a:, which is how you learn who paid; MT900 has no ordering-customer field at all, because the account owner is the one being debited.
02What is an MT941 used for?: Confirming a figure and nothing else. An MT941 is a balance report: it carries balances and no statement lines, so it answers how much and never why. It is useful for an account you hold a position on and do not reconcile line by line, and it is the wrong message to hand to a reconciliation, because there is nothing in it to match. If a screen built on one looks wrong there is no evidence inside the message to check it against.
03Is an MT910 the same as the statement line?: It is the same movement, earlier, and often with more on it. The confirmation goes out as the bank books the credit; the statement line for it turns up on the MT940 that night. They are one economic event and they are counted once — :21: on the confirmation and the references on the statement line are what tie the two together. A system that counts both has doubled a credit, which is the quiet failure this family is best known for.
04Which MT9xx message should I ask my bank for?: Start with what the account is for. One you reconcile needs MT940 every day. Watching a busy account through the day is what MT942 is for, with a floor limit of zero if the bank will set one. Where a single large movement matters, the MT900 and MT910 confirmations are the ones that buy you hours. An account you only hold a position on can live on MT941. Then ask your bank which of the five it actually produces for each account, because that is usually the shorter list.
05Do MT900 and MT910 carry a balance?: No. A confirmation states one movement — value date, currency, amount, and the references that identify it. There is no balance tag in either message. What they buy is time: a confirmation lands as the movement is booked, hours before the statement it will appear on, and for a treasury team watching a large receipt those hours are the whole reason to ask for them.

Tell us what your bank sends and we will read it.

One account, one day, whichever of the five your bank produces. You get back the position, the movements behind it, and every confirmation matched to the statement line it became.

Request a demo Back to the format library

Confirmations and statements together, counted once.