What are BEN, SHA, OUR payment instructions?

When making an international wire transfer (MT103 SWIFT), you have the option to select who pays the transfer charges.

BEN, SHA, and OUR are codes within a SWIFT MT103 instruction, found in field 71A "Details of Charges".

The OUR instruction indicates that you will pay all transfer charges, and we will receive the full payment.

SHA (shared) means you only pay your bank's outgoing transfer charge. We receive your payment minus the correspondent (intermediary) bank charges.

BEN (beneficiary) implies that you won't pay any transfer charges. We receive your payment minus all transfer charges.

For all international transfers to us, we require the use of the OUR instruction. The only exception is for EU-payments in EUR, which can be made with the SHA instruction.

Please use the Payment Options indicated on your Order.

If we offer local Payment Options on your Order, we recommend using them, as they generally incur lower fees and ensure faster processing.