OUR, SHA, and BEN are traditional SWIFT charge instructions. OUR generally assigns transfer charges to the sender, SHA shares charges between sender and beneficiary, and BEN assigns charges to the beneficiary. Actual deductions and availability depend on the route, banks, message type, and provider terms.
The boundary worth keeping clear
The definition matters because nearby terms can describe a different document, event or responsibility. Use OUR, SHA, and BEN charges only when the record matches the conditions above. A familiar label attached to the wrong stage creates cleaner-looking data and worse decisions. That discipline also makes reports comparable across teams, systems and reporting periods.
Review points before the transaction moves
- Confirm the party responsible for the payment operation.
- Keep the source data and approval with the transaction.
- Record exceptions instead of silently changing the original instruction.
- Make the downstream owner able to reconstruct what happened without an email search.
Related terms and distinctions
- SWIFT payment: A SWIFT payment is commonly understood as an international bank transfer instructed using financial messages sent through the Swift network.
- Recipient amount: Recipient amount is the amount the Recipient is expected or confirmed to receive after currency conversion and applicable deductions.
| Checkpoint | What the record should show |
|---|---|
| Create | Capture complete payer, Recipient, account and purpose data |
| Validate | Check identifiers, permissions and route requirements before release |
| Process | Keep status events and references from each institution |
| Resolve | Assign exceptions and reconcile the final outcome to the business record |
The trade-off
More controls add work at the start. That cost is visible. The cost of weak records arrives later as rework, delayed approval, margin leakage, a payment investigation or a delivery dispute. Set the control depth according to the amount, risk and reversibility of the decision.
Related Quotable resources
Continue with SWIFT payment and Recipient amount. These pages cover the commercial workflow and the records that connect OUR, SHA, and BEN charges to the next transaction step.
