Quotes
The page relates only to third-party FX Providers.
For Source PSPs that provide their own FX, a different process applies. See Payment setup for PSPs who provide their own FX for details.
Quotes are generated in response to a specific quote request from a specific PSP. Each quote specifies the final exchange rate offered by a specific FXP to the Source PSP after any tier-based or PSP-based improvements have been applied.
Requesting quotes
First the Source PSP calls the GET /quotes/
API. The quote request must specify the following information:
Source Country
Source Currency
Destination Country
Destination Currency
Amount Currency (requested by the Sender)
this will be either the Source Currency code or Destination Currency code
Amount
If the Amount Currency is the Source Currency, this amount represents the amount transferred from the Source PSP to the FXP.
If the Amount Currency is the Destination Currency, this amount represents the exact amount that must be credited to the Recipient's account
Both countries and currencies must be provided because it is not always the case that there is a one-to-one relationship between a country and currency. In some countries (such as Hong Kong) the IPS operates in two currencies (HKD, CNH). In addition, some currencies are used in multiple countries; EUR is used in 19 countries.
Since the Sender can request to send a specific amount in their own currency, or for the Recipient to receive a specific amount in the Recipient’s currency, the currency request must specify which currency (Sender or Recipient) the Sender used to define the amount.
Adjusting for the Source PSP's Deducted Fee
The quote request returns the Interbank Settlement Amount
that must be transferred from the Source PSP to the FXP. But if the Source PSP intends to charge a Source PSP Deducted Fee, then the amount debited from the Sender’s account will differ by the amount of this fee. The Source PSP therefore needs to add or subtract this fee before showing the final amount to the Sender, as follows:
If the Sender defined the amount they wish to send in the Source Currency, the Source PSP must subtract their intended Source PSP Deducted Fee from the Amount before submitting the quote request. This ensures that the amount credited to the Recipient is accurate after all fees have been deducted.
If the Sender defined the Amount they wish the Recipient to receive, in the Destination Currency, Nexus will calculate the fees and tell the Source PSP how much they need to send to the FXP (in the Source Currency). The Source PSP must then add their intended Source PSP Deducted Fee to this amount in order to show the Sender what will be debited from their account.
Generation of quotes
Once Nexus receives a quote request, Nexus will:
retrieve the list of FXPs that have a business relationship with the Source PSP, for that currency pair
For each FXP, retrieve the base rate for the currency pair requested by the PSP, and
retrieve any tier-based improvements: Nexus will check whether the transaction value is higher than any of the tiers set by FXPs for that currency.
retrieve any PSP-based improvements: Nexus will check whether the FXP has registered a PSP-based improvement for the requesting PSP.
add and apply any tier- and PSP-based improvements. For each FXP, any applicable tier-based improvement is added to any applicable PSP-based improvement. Then the total improvement in basis points is applied to the base rate. (The two improvements must be added together before they are applied, so that the improvements do not compound.)
For each quote, calculate the relevant Destination PSP (Deducted) Fee, so that the Source PSP knows exactly what will be credited to the Recipient. (See Fees.)
Return the full list of quotes with rates that have already been improved for both tier-based and PSP-improvements. The quote response will include a FX Quote Request Id, that refers to the original request by the Source PSP
Every FXP-specific quote includes a Quote ID which is unique to the PSP's quote request. The usage of this Quote ID is explained below.
How quotes are used by the Source PSP
When the Source PSP receives the list of quotes it will:
Select their preferred quote from the list of quotes provided by Nexus.
Show the Sender exactly what will be debited from their account, exactly what will be credited to the Recipient’s account, the effective exchange rate and any fees that apply.
If the Sender approves the payment at that rate:
The PSP will call the
GET /quotes/{quoteId}/intermediaryAgents/
API operation to retrieve the relevant Financial Institution Identification of the FXP's SAPs, and the account numbers for the FXP’s accounts at those SAPs. These will be used to fill theIntermediaryAgent
blocks of thepacs.008
payment instruction that the Source PSP will send to their local IPS. (See MESSAGE: pacs.008 FI to FI Customer Credit Transfer.) (This information may already be included in the response toGET /quotes
.)
Automatic expiry of a quote
A Sender of a payment would be shown the final exchange rate before entering the details of the Recipient. To ensure a good user experience, the Sender should be able to complete the payment setup process without being asked to agree to a new, revised exchange rate.
For this reason, FX Providers are obliged to honour a quote for at least ten minutes (600 seconds) after it is provided to a Source PSP, even if the FXP has since provided new rates.
This works as follows:
Each quote generated by Nexus is linked to the underlying rate provided by an FXP
Each quote has an expiry time that is initially left blank
When the FXP submits a new rate, Nexus will
Set the previous rate to expire immediately
Find every quote that is related to the previous rate, and set the expiry time to 600 seconds from now
When Nexus processes a
pacs.008
payment instruction, it will check whether the quote expiry time is still null (blank) or in the futureIf the expiry time is in the past, Nexus will reject the payment.
This process means that a quote from Nexus remains valid unless:
(a) the FXP has since updated the rate and
(b) more than 600 seconds have passed between the quote creation time (when it was sent to the Source PSP) and the point at which the
pacs.008
payment instruction is received by Nexus.
If the FXP has not since updated the rate, then it will be possible to use that rate for an indefinite period. However, it would be best practice for the Source PSP to clear/reset the payment setup process after a long period of time and refresh the rates in case other FXPs have improved their rates.
The 10-minute limit is intentionally set to be long enough for most Senders to be able to complete the payment setup process without having to refresh the agreed rate. The 10-minute limit is standard across all FXPs for Nexus.
Note: The Nexus Scheme Rulebook could require FX Providers to honour quotes for a longer period of time, but this would result in them offering worse rates to allow for the greater risk of market FX rates changing before the sender completes the payment. Ten minutes is considered to be a reasonable trade-off between user experience for the Sender, and FX risk for the FXP.
WORKED EXAMPLE: Quote expiry
For simplicity, in the following example there is only one FXP and two Senders.
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