What is the difference between MT380 and MT304?

With an MT380 the fund manager asks the custodian to execute an FX trade. With an MT304 the manager has already traded with another bank and asks the custodian only to settle it.

Category 3: Foreign exchange, money markets and derivatives

MT380 Foreign Exchange Order

Written and maintained by ZagTrader. Last reviewed 21 October 2026. How this page is sourced and checked

The MT380 is an order from a fund manager to a custodian bank to buy or sell a specific amount of a currency. A custodian can also pass the order on to a local sub-custodian that executes it in the local market.

Message type: MT380
Category: 3
Status: In the current standard
ISO 20022: No direct equivalent

What MT380 is used for

Fund managers often need currency for a securities purchase or want to repatriate sale proceeds. Instead of trading FX themselves, they order the custodian to do it. Execution is confirmed back with an MT381. The MT380 can also be sent as a duplicate of an order given by other means, or as a copy to a third party (subfunction DUPL, COPY or CODU in field 23G).

The message has the generic layout of securities messages, with 16R/16S blocks (GENL, LINK and the FX order details) and an optional block for the underlying securities trade. Use of the MT380 requires registration in a Swift message user group (MUG).

Sent by: The fund manager, or a custodian passing the order on
Sent to: The custodian, or the local sub-custodian

Fields

This is a catalogue entry: the field-by-field structure is not shown here because we publish structures only where we have checked them against public sources. Paste an MT380 into the parser to see each field decoded with its tag, name and value.

Decode an MT380 in the parser

ISO 20022

No ISO 20022 equivalent: Swift’s MT and MX equivalence table lists none for this message. Treasury messages in category 3 were not part of the CBPR+ migration of cross-border payment instructions and remain MT messages on Swift.

MT380 questions

What is the difference between MT380 and MT304?: With an MT380 the fund manager asks the custodian to execute an FX trade. With an MT304 the manager has already traded with another bank and asks the custodian only to settle it.

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