Serial Method vs Cover Method

The SERIAL method means that the payment is sent through a “series” of banks.

In SERIAL method, there is a direct account relationship between each connected pair of banks in the payment chain.

There is only one message exchanged in the SERIAL method. This message is sent from one financial institution to the next financial institution in the chain.

We saw the example of SERIAL method in the previous article about pacs.009 (core). The message was forwarded from one bank to another.

If there is only one message used in SERIAL method it means that this message contains the necessary information about payment details but it is also the settlement instruction. And this aspect is the most important difference when we compare SERIAL method to COVER scenario.