BankLint

Rule reference · SEPA Credit Transfer scheme rules · Control sums

SEPA-SCT-CTRLSUM-006: Control sum written with more than two decimal places

A control sum is written with more than two decimal places, all of them zeros after the second (for example 1250.000). The value has at most two decimals, and the ISO 20022 schema accepts it.

SeverityINFO Info: recommendation only
StatusRecommendation, or depends on your agreement with the bank
Applies topain.001.001.09, SEPA Credit Transfer
Elements checked
/Document/CstmrCdtTrfInitn/GrpHdr/CtrlSum
/Document/CstmrCdtTrfInitn/PmtInf/CtrlSum
SourceEPC132-08 2025 Version 1.0, section 2.1.1, items 1.5 and 2.5 (SEPA format rules) · Standards and sources
Rule packsepa.sct.pain001.v09 v4, effective 2025-10-05

Why it matters

Some banks check the written text rather than the value and reject a control sum with a third decimal place.

How to fix it

Write control sums with at most two decimal places in the export to be safe.

Example

Synthetic XML fragments.

Example that fails
<GrpHdr>
  <MsgId>MSG-2026-0001</MsgId>
  <CreDtTm>2026-10-16T09:00:00</CreDtTm>
  <NbOfTxs>4</NbOfTxs>
  <CtrlSum>6460.440</CtrlSum>
  <InitgPty>…</InitgPty>
</GrpHdr>
Corrected
<GrpHdr>
  <MsgId>MSG-2026-0001</MsgId>
  <CreDtTm>2026-10-16T09:00:00</CreDtTm>
  <NbOfTxs>4</NbOfTxs>
  <CtrlSum>6460.44</CtrlSum>
  <InitgPty>…</InitgPty>
</GrpHdr>

Try it with a synthetic example

These files are synthetic test data from BankLint's test corpus. Download one, or validate it directly.

  • Amount 1250.000 and control sum 6460.440: two decimals by value, PASS; the written third decimal is INFO for the amount (AMT-003, pack v3) and the control sum (CTRLSUM-006, pack v4). PASS · Download · Validate it

Explained in

Validate a pain.001 fileFree, no account needed, files are not stored.