# What your bank actually deducted before your export payment landed

> Your FIRC or credit advice shows one exchange rate and no explanation of it. How to check that rate against the day's public reference rate, and read the SWIFT message behind it to see what your buyer sent, what reached your bank, and who was meant to pay the transfer fees.

- Source: https://www.lexiplatform.com/articles/money-home/bank-fx-deduction-before-export-payment-lands
- Published: 2026-09-15  ·  Last updated: 2026-09-15
- Next scheduled review: 2027-01-15
- Reviewed by: Dipender Bhamrah
- Publisher: LEXI Platform Pvt. Ltd.

## What did my bank actually deduct before my export payment landed?

Your bank converts your export proceeds at a rate it sets itself, not a fixed public rate. To check it, compare that rate against the day's RBI reference rate, then ask your bank for the SWIFT message that carried the payment — it shows what your buyer actually sent, what reached your bank, and who was meant to pay the transfer fees. Whatever is left unexplained is your bank's own margin.

The invoice read one figure, in dollars. Convert it in your head at today's
rate and the number should have been rounder than the rupees that actually
landed.

That gap is not automatically a problem. Somewhere between your buyer's bank
and your account, a currency was converted at a rate your own bank chose,
and one or more banks along the way may have taken a fee. Nothing you were
handed separates these two things out, and nobody is obliged to explain the
number before you ask.

Nobody here is telling you to move your banking. What follows is how to
read the documents you already have, closely enough to know what happened
to this one payment.

## Where the rate on your credit advice actually comes from

When your export proceeds arrive, your bank converts them into rupees at
what banking rules call its TT buying rate: TT for telegraphic transfer, the
standard route a wire travels by. The rules governing this are set by the
Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association of India (FEDAI), the industry body
whose rulebook every authorised dealer bank in India follows. Those rules
say the conversion happens at the bank's own TT buying rate, or a rate you
contracted for in advance. There is no single, government-fixed number that
applies to every bank alike.

The same rulebook lets a bank set its own charges too, on the condition,
stated loosely, that they stay "not out of line with the average cost of
providing services." No percentage or rupee figure is attached to that
condition anywhere. So the rate on your credit advice is a real rate your
bank genuinely applied, and also a number the bank had wide, unwritten room
to choose. It may still be a fair one. Checking it against something
independent is the only way to know.

## What to check it against

The Reserve Bank of India publishes a daily reference rate for the US
dollar and other major currencies, drawn from the interbank market. It is
not a rate any exporter can transact at, but it is the closest thing to a
neutral answer to what a dollar was actually worth on a given day, and it
is public.

Look up the rate for the value date on your credit advice: the day the
conversion actually happened, not the day you shipped or invoiced. Put it
beside the rate your bank applied. FEDAI's rules also require every bank to
publish its own day's card rate, and to state in advance the transaction
size up to which it commits to using that rate. Ask your relationship
manager for that figure too. Three numbers side by side, the RBI reference
rate, your bank's own published card rate, and the rate actually used on
your transaction, say more together than any one of them alone.

## Reading your FIRC or credit advice

The document your bank issues on realisation, usually a
credit advice, often bundled with your FIRC, typically shows the amount in
foreign currency, the rate applied, the rupee amount credited, and a
reference number tying it to the transfer. It does not usually show the
day's reference rate, and it does not say whether anything was taken out
before your bank applied its rate to what was left. For that you need the
message that actually carried the money, not the summary your bank
produced from it.

The same remittance is also what your bank later matches against your
shipping bill to close the entry in EDPMS. Until
that matching happens, [the entry stays open](https://www.lexiplatform.com/articles/money-home/shipping-bill-still-open-in-edpms), regardless of what rate was used to convert it. The
two questions are separate, so do not let one wait on the other.

## The SWIFT message underneath it

Every international wire reaching an Indian bank travels as a SWIFT message
in a standard international format, and you are entitled to ask your bank
for a copy of the one that carried your payment. Most banks call it the
inward remittance advice, or simply the SWIFT copy. Three fields on it
answer what your credit advice does not.

**Field 32A** carries the amount and currency your bank's own account
actually received, on the date it was settled. **Field 33B**, present only
when it differs from 32A, carries the amount your buyer's bank was
originally instructed to send. If the two differ, something was taken out
between your buyer and your bank, and the message says so directly.

**Field 71A** carries a three-letter instruction your buyer's bank chose
when the payment was sent, and it decides who was meant to pay for the
transfer, a term you can also [agree with your buyer up front rather than discover after the money lands](https://www.lexiplatform.com/articles/getting-paid/export-payment-terms-what-each-costs). "OUR" means the sender agreed to cover every fee along the
route, so the full instructed amount should reach you. "SHA" splits the
cost, each bank taking its own charge from its own side. "BEN" puts every
fee on you, deducted before the money reaches your account. Where charges
were actually taken out under SHA or BEN, a further field, 71F, itemises
them.

Set what 71A says against what 32A and 33B actually show. A message marked
"OUR" with a gap between the two amounts is not an exchange-rate question
at all. It is a fee that should not have been deducted, worth raising with
your bank on exactly that basis.

## Three places a rupee can go missing before you see it

**Correspondent or intermediary banks, en route.** A payment between two
countries often passes through one or more banks that neither you nor your
buyer chose. Each can take a fee, and under "SHA" or "BEN" those fees come
out of what reaches you. Field 71F on the SWIFT copy is where they should
be itemised. Ask for it specifically if it is missing.

**Your own bank's lifting or handling fee.** Separately from the wire
itself, your bank may charge its own fee for receiving and crediting a
foreign remittance. FEDAI's rules let it set that fee itself, the same way
it sets its charges generally. This usually appears as its own line on your
credit advice or a separate debit in your statement, not inside the SWIFT
message. Check both documents rather than one.

**The gap between the rate applied and the reference rate.** Whatever is
left once the two above are accounted for is the conversion itself: the
difference between your bank's TT buying rate that day and the RBI's
published reference rate. Some difference is ordinary; a bank carries a
real cost to hold and trade currency. Whether the size of it is reasonable
is a conversation to have with your bank, and one you can only have well
with the numbers actually in front of you.

## What this tells you, and what it does not

This will not settle whether your bank treated you fairly on this payment.
What it gives you is a way to check, from a document your bank has already
sent you and one it is obliged to hand over if you ask for it. Do it once,
on a payment large enough to be worth the twenty minutes, and you will know
precisely which of the three places to point to the next time a number
lands smaller than it should.

## Sources

- [Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association of India — FEDAI Rules (10th Edition, effective 1 April 2019, updated to 14 February 2022): General Guidelines 1-2, Rule 2.1(c), Rule 2.5(a), Rule 4.4](https://fedai.org.in/UploadPopupPageFiles/FEDAIRules10EditionAmend18Feb2022.pdf) — checked 2026-09-15
- [Reserve Bank of India — Reference Rate Archive (daily reference rate, US Dollar and other currencies)](https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/ReferenceRateArchive.aspx) — checked 2026-09-15
- [RBI/2023-24/108, A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 13, 5 January 2024 — Risk Management and Inter-Bank Dealings: Hedging of Foreign Exchange Risk (mid-market rate / bid-ask disclosure to a retail user before a foreign exchange derivative contract)](https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=12594&Mode=0) — checked 2026-09-15