MT 111 Explained: Request for Stop Payment of a Cheque

MT 111 asks the drawee bank to stop payment on a specific cheque — because it was lost, stolen, issued in error, or is subject to a dispute. It's a formal, machine-readable version of the "stop payment" instructions bank customers give over the counter, sent bank-to-bank when the cheque was originally advised or drawn through a correspondent relationship.

Key fields

• 20 — Sender's Reference: Reference for the stop request.
• 21 — Cheque Number: The exact cheque to be stopped — matched against the number originally advised, e.g. in an MT 110.
• 30 — Date of Issue: The cheque's issue date, used to confirm it's the same instrument.
• 32a — Amount: The cheque's amount, for matching.
• 52a — Drawer Bank: The bank the cheque is drawn on.
• 59 — Payee: The named payee, for matching.
• 75 — Queries: Free text giving the reason for the stop — lost, stolen, dispute, and so on.

Speed matters here: a stop request only works if it reaches the drawee bank before the cheque is presented and paid, so MT 111 is sent as soon as the need to stop is identified, not batched with other traffic.