Ordering, Intermediary and Beneficiary banks

Role of Ordering, Intermediary and Beneficiary banks
i) Ordering Bank
An ordering bank is the one that originates a wire transfer as per the order placed by its
customer. The ordering bank must ensure that qualifying wire transfers contain complete
originator information. The bank must also verify and preserve the information at least for
a period of ten years.
ii) Intermediary bank
For both cross-border and domestic wire transfers, a bank processing an intermediary
element of a chain of wire transfers must ensure that all originator information
accompanying a wire transfer is retained with the transfer. Where technical limitations
prevent full originator information accompanying a cross-border wire transfer from
remaining with a related domestic wire transfer, a record must be kept at least for ten
years (as required under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002) by the receiving
intermediary bank of all the information received from the ordering bank.
iii) Beneficiary bank

A beneficiary bank should have effective risk-based procedures in place to identify wire
transfers lacking complete originator information. The lack
of complete originator information may be considered as a factor in assessing whether a
wire transfer or related transactions are suspicious and whether they should be reported
to the Financial Intelligence Unit-India. The beneficiary bank should also take up the
matter with the ordering bank if a transaction is not accompanied by detailed information
of the fund remitter. If the ordering bank fails to furnish information on the remitter, the
beneficiary bank should consider restricting or even terminating its business relationship
with the ordering bank.