A SWIFT banking standard for electronic bank statement messages, widely used in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Contains structured transaction data with specific field tags like :61: and :86:.
Understanding MT940 (SWIFT Message Type 940)
MT940 is a SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) message standard for electronic bank account statements. It is the most widely used bank statement format outside of North America, particularly in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
MT940 messages use a structured field-tag format: :20: for transaction reference, :25: for account identification, :60F: for opening balance, :61: for individual statement lines, :86: for transaction details, and :62F: for closing balance. The format is compact but requires specific parsing logic.
MT940 has been the global banking standard for decades but is gradually being replaced by the newer ISO 20022 CAMT.053 format, which offers richer data fields and XML-based structure. However, many banks still provide MT940 as their primary or only electronic statement format.
Why It Matters for Ecommerce
If your business banks with an international institution or you operate in Europe or Asia, you likely receive bank statements in MT940 format. QuickBooks doesn't natively import MT940, so conversion to QBO or CSV is required. PrimeConnect's MT940 converters parse the complex field structure and output QuickBooks-ready files.
Practical Example
An MT940 statement line looks like: :61:2602150215D1500,00NMSCNONREF//BANKREF :86:Transfer to supplier ABC Corp Invoice #4521 The :61: line encodes the date (Feb 15, 2026), debit indicator (D), amount (1500.00), transaction type (MSC), and references. The :86: line provides the human-readable description.
Related Terms
CAMT.053 (ISO 20022 Bank-to-Customer Statement)
An XML-based bank statement format defined by the ISO 20022 standard, designed to replace MT940. Provides richer, more structured transaction data and is being adopted globally.
File FormatISO 20022
An international standard for electronic financial messaging that defines a common platform for payments, securities, and bank statements. CAMT.053 is the bank statement message within this standard.
File FormatOFX (Open Financial Exchange)
An open standard XML-based format for exchanging financial data between institutions, software, and services. Supports bank statements, credit card statements, and investment data.
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