What is a swift MT950?

Answer 1

MT950 is the electronic equivalent of your bank statement produced in SWIFT format.

It has the opening balance, details of debits and credits and a closing balance.

Is is sent by the bank who service the account to the account owner. The account owner will then check it against their own 'Nostro' account which is a reflection of the real account.

If you are asking about the MT950 then you are interested in a bank formatted statement which is checked against the Nostro hence the need for applications to do Nostro Reconciliation.

The Nostro is somewhat like your cheque book in that it records what you think you have in your account, the real account (Vostro) balance as shown on the statement is compared.

So if you have just written a cheque out it will be noted in your chequebook and you'll have accomodated that in your balance estimatation, but your real account won't reflect it until the cheque is presented.