Recall or return a payment · Help centre

What's real Eleanor Whitfield · Corporate Treasurer E

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Recall or return a payment

How to request the return of a payment you sent in error — and the honest limits on getting it back.

Recall before settlement vs after

If a payment has not yet settled — still in Draft or Pending approval — you can simply cancel it yourself; no money has moved. Once a payment has settled and left your account, you cannot cancel it. You can only request a recall: ask the beneficiary bank to send the money back. That request can be refused, and the funds may already be spent, so recovery is never guaranteed.

Requesting a recall

  1. 1Open the settled payment and choose Request recall.
  2. 2Select a reason: duplicate payment, wrong beneficiary, wrong amount, or fraud. The reason determines how the scheme treats the request.
  3. 3Confirm the details. For a SWIFT payment this raises a recall message (camt.056) to the beneficiary bank quoting the original UETR.
  4. 4The request goes to operations, who pursue it with the beneficiary bank and keep you updated through the linked enquiry.
Important

A recall is a request, not a reversal. The beneficiary bank must agree, and a fraud recall depends on the funds still being there. Speed matters — raise the recall the moment you spot the error.

Preventing the next one

Most recalls trace back to a wrong beneficiary. Confirmation of Payee on UK payments, IBAN and BIC validation on cross-border, and verifying any change of bank details by phone are the controls that stop the error before it happens.

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About this guide

Topic
Tracking & enquiries
Reading time
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Updated
24 Jun 2026
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