With Stricter regulations and compliances, RMA helps in solving these regulations demands by maintaining interbank or customer relationships; especially correspondent relationships. This is requested by a global group of banks associations and also by Wolfsberg Group to have due diligence been done to maintain user to user messaging configured with RMA - the Relationship Manager Application.
The RMA is a SWIFT-mandated authorisation that enables financial institutions to define which counterparties can send them FIN messages. RMA is the Relationship Management Application, though in common use when discussing an RMA, what is described is the key exchange and authorisation process between two institutions. Any unwanted traffic is blocked at the sender level, reducing the operational risks associated with handling unwanted messages. In order to facilitate transactions, RMAs can also be established with non-customers – in other words, counterparty financial institutions of the bank for which the bank does not hold an account.
RMA Plus, the more granular version of RMA, goes one step further by letting institutions specify which message type(s) they want to send to, and receive from each of their counterparties. For example, an institution might only wish to receive letters of credit from a particular correspondent. By giving greater control over individual relationships, RMA Plus can facilitate new business opportunities which might otherwise be avoided due to risk and regulatory concerns.
The use of RMA or RMA Plus is mandatory for user-to-user messages that require end-to-end signature, which covers most types of SWIFT FIN messages. Institutions need to grant RMA or RMA Plus authorisation to their counterparties in order to receive messages from those counterparties. RMA functionality is built into the Alliance Access and Alliance Entry SWIFT interfaces, and Alliance RMA is also available as a standalone product.
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