Documentation

Column allows customers to originate and receive International ACH transfers. International ACH transfers, identified by the IAT SEC code, are a leg of a transaction originating from or sent to an office of a financial institution located outside the jurisdiction of the US.

IAT transfers are most often used when an ACH transfer would otherwise lose ultimate originator or ultimate beneficiary information. NACHA provides a number of IAT resources that can be helpful in understanding all scenarios in which to send an IAT.

ACH IAT Credits

IAT credit transfers are most commonly “last-leg transactions” where funds originate internationally. For example, a customer sends an international Swift wire from a foreign bank account to a Column bank account. Those funds are then used to make ACH payouts to a number of businesses in the US. These ACH payouts must be sent with an IAT entry class code and the ultimate originator (likely the owner of the foreign bank account) must be included as the ultimate originator counterparty on these ACH transfers. For these transfers, an ultimate_beneficiary_counterparty_id is not required.

ACH IAT Debits

IAT debit transfers are generally used when a foreign bank allows a customer to originate a debit payment to pull funds from a U.S. bank account to a beneficiary’s account in a foreign country. Most commonly, the foreign bank may send a SWIFT message to their U.S. correspondent bank with instructions to originate an ACH debit to a U.S. bank account and pull funds into the foreign bank’s account at the U.S. correspondent bank. The foreign bank can then hold funds at the U.S. correspondent bank, and make funds available to the receiver at the foreign bank.

Create an IAT Transfer

IAT transfers originated at Column must include a transaction_type_code identifying the reason for payment. Possible options include:

• ANN - Annuity
• BUS - Business/Commercial
• DEP - Deposit
• LOA - Loan
• MIS - Miscellaneous
• MOR - Mortgage
• PEN - Pension
• REM - Remittance
• RLS - Rent/Lease
• SAL - Salary/Payroll
• TAX - Tax

Outgoing IAT credit transfers require an ultimate_originator_counterparty_id or ultimate_originator_counterparty. Outgoing IAT debit transfers require an ultimate_beneficiary_counterparty_id. You can create a counterparty at ACH transfer creation. If you do so Column will create a counterparty_id for this counterparty and include the counterparty_id in the ACH transfer response. You can also first create counterparties with the banking information of the ultimate beneficiary and/or originator.

On both outgoing and incoming IAT transfers Column populates the IAT transfer sub-object with details regarding the IAT transfer in our API response.