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Spotlight PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 The EU e-invoicing mandate is here — France Sept 2026, Belgium Jan 2026, Germany 2025.

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MT300 — Foreign Exchange Confirmation

The confirmation of an interbank foreign exchange trade between two counterparties. Spot, forward outright or a leg of an FX swap: the legacy Cat 3 message that materialises a verbal agreement on the OTC FX market.

Purpose

MT300 confirms an OTC FX transaction: in market practice, two traders agree on a deal verbally (voice, Bloomberg chat, RFQ platform) and then each back-office emits an MT300 to the other to formalise the economic parameters (currencies, amounts, dates, rate). Both MT300s must match on every critical field for settlement to trigger at T+2 (spot) or at the contractual date (forward).

MT300 does not directly trigger settlement — it is MT202 (or pacs.009 since November 2025) that executes the liquidity move for each leg. MT300 matching can be bilateral (back-office) or centralised through CLS Bank (Continuous Linked Settlement, the system that settles Herstatt risk for 18 major currencies).

Sequence structure

Unlike a flat MT103, MT300 is organised into four sequences, each introduced by a :15X: tag (sequence separator). This structure isolates the two legs of the trade (sold / bought) from the common trunk:

  • Sequence A — General Information (:15A:): reference, operation type, counterparties' BICs.
  • Sequence B — Currency to be Sold (:15B:): sold currency, amount, trade and value dates, exchange rate, payment instructions.
  • Sequence C — Currency to be Bought (:15C:): bought currency, matching amount, receiving instructions.
  • Sequence D — Optional General Information (:15D:): split settlement, brokers, remarks (rarely used).

Mandatory tags

TagSequenceNameUsage
:20:ASender's ReferenceUnique deal reference on the sender side (16 chars).
:22A:AType of OperationNEWT (new), AMND (amendment), CANC (cancellation), DUPL (duplicate).
:22C:ACommon ReferenceReference shared by both counterparties, normally composed of the two BICs + 4 chars, used for matching.
:82A:AParty AParty A BIC (= sender per SWIFT convention).
:87A:AParty BParty B BIC (= receiver).
:30T:BTrade DateTrade date (YYYYMMDD).
:30V:BValue DateSettlement value date (YYYYMMDD).
:36:BExchange RateApplied exchange rate (max 12 digits, comma decimal).
:32B:BCurrency / Amount SoldISO 4217 currency + amount sold by Party A.
:33B:CCurrency / Amount BoughtCurrency + amount bought by Party A (= 32B × 36 rate).
:53A: / :57A:B and CSender's / Receiver's CorrespondentCorrespondent BICs for each leg — drives the settlement chain.

Real-world example

Sale of EUR 10 million against purchase of USD 10.875 million at the EUR/USD rate of 1.0875, traded on 16 May 2026, spot value T+2 (20 May 2026), between BNP Paribas Paris (party A) and Deutsche Bank Frankfurt (party B), USD correspondent at JPMorgan Chase:

text mt300-fx-confirmation.txt 
{1:F01BNPAFRPPAXXX0000000000}{2:I300DEUTDEFFXXXXN}{3:{108:FX20260516001}}{4:
:15A:
:20:FX20260516001
:22A:NEWT
:94A:AGNT
:22C:BNPAFRPP9876DEUTDEFF
:82A:BNPAFRPPXXX
:87A:DEUTDEFFXXX
:15B:
:30T:20260516
:30V:20260520
:36:1,0875
:32B:EUR10000000,00
:53A:BNPAFRPPXXX
:57A:DEUTDEFFXXX
:15C:
:33B:USD10875000,00
:53A:DEUTDEFFXXX
:57A:CHASUS33XXX
-}
  • :22A:NEWT — new deal (vs amendment / cancel).
  • :22C:BNPAFRPP9876DEUTDEFF — Common Reference in BIC1 + 4 random chars + BIC2 format, identical both sides for matching.
  • :30T:20260516 — trade date, :30V:20260520 — value date spot T+2.
  • :36:1,0875 — EUR/USD rate.
  • :32B:EUR10000000,00 — EUR sold by BNP.
  • :33B:USD10875000,00 — USD received by BNP.
  • :53A:DEUTDEFFXXX in sequence C — Deutsche Bank debits its USD at its Chase correspondent to deliver to BNP.

Common pitfalls

  • Common Reference not identical — tag :22C: must be strictly identical on both sides (BIC order, 4 middle chars). A simple case swap breaks the CLS match and forces a manual rework.
  • EUR/USD quotation convention — sequence B always carries the currency sold by the sender. For an MT300 sent by the inverse counterparty, B and C swap. Confusing both sides leads to a mismatch.
  • Value date and market conventions — EUR/USD spot is T+2; USD/CAD is T+1; USD/TRY is T+0. Align :30V: on the local convention or get a clearing rejection.
  • Inconsistent rate and amounts — the product 32B × 36 must equal 33B to the cent (often zero tolerance for majors). A front-office rounding error propagates into MT300 and blocks the match.
  • Missing settlement instructions — without precise :53A: and :57A: in each B/C sequence, the receiving bank does not know where to send the settlement MT202. Triggers a T+2 settlement fail.
  • CLS-eligible vs non-CLS — for a CLS-eligible pair (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY…), MT300 must additionally be routed to CLS Bank with a CLS-specific identifier. Forgetting tag :77H: in sequence D breaks PVP (payment-vs-payment).

ISO 20022 equivalent

In ISO 20022, the functional equivalent of MT300 is fxtr.014.001.05 (Foreign Exchange Trade Notification), in the fxtr (FX Trade) domain. Adoption: low on SWIFTNet — FX counterparties largely stick to MT300 in 2026. CLS Bank remains on MT and has not announced an ISO 20022 migration plan.

  • MT305 — FX Option Confirmation (variant for vanilla options).
  • MT320 — Fixed Loan/Deposit Confirmation (Money Markets).
  • MT304 — Advice / Instruction of a Third-Party Deal (NDF, swap leg).
  • MT306 — Exotic FX Option Confirmation (barrier, digital).
  • MT202 — General FI Transfer, used to settle each leg.
  • ISO 20022 equivalent: fxtr.014 (Trade Notification), fxtr.013 (Trade Status).