About Wires

A wire transfer is an electronic payment method that allows individuals and businesses to send money quickly and securely between financial institutions. Unlike ACH transactions, which are processed in batches, wire transfers are processed individually and typically settle on the same day, making them ideal for time-sensitive transactions.

Note: Narmi Banking only supports domestic wire transfers, not international wire transfers.

Wire transfers can be offered to all your users or only to a specific segment. For more information on segments, go to Segmentation.

The Wire Manager in Narmi Command allows staff members to view individual wire details, as well as review wire transactions that have been flagged by risk settings and manually approve or deny them. Your institution can set wire risk rules in Narmi Command’s Risk Manager.

How Wires Work

Generally, wire transfers follow this process:

  1. The sender first pays for the transaction upfront at their financial institution.

  2. The sending institution sends a message to the recipient's institution with payment instructions through a secure system, such as Fedwire or SWIFT. For Narmi, wires are processed every 2 minutes. A Fedwire file is generated for each wire and sent via SFTP to the institution's desired destination for further processing by the Federal Reserve. For SFTP file deliveries, Narmi supports username/password authentication and SSH key authentication. Please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager for more information on SSH configuration.
    Note: Your institution may need to whitelist Narmi IP addresses on your SFTP server. UAT and Production requests can originate from 34.203.54.204 and 44.209.24.210.

  3. The recipient's institution receives the necessary information from the sending institution and deposits its own reserve funds into the correct account.

  4. The two institutions then settle the payment on the back end after the money has already been deposited.

Business User Permissions for Wires

Business banking users who have Collaborator access can be permitted to send wires with or without a template, manage templates, and manage recipients. To do this, go to Manage users and edit or add a new Collaborator. Under Permissions, select Full access to wire capabilities.

List of permissions with a focus on wire capabilities access option.

Dual Approvals for Wires

Business banking users who have Collaborator access can be permitted to approve wire transfers via dual approval. For more information, go to Dual Approvals.

Institution Settings for Wires

Some wire settings can only be configured by Narmi support, but your institution can configure the following settings in Narmi Command under Configurations > Institution Settings:

  • Wire Information – General information on wires and timing; this is displayed on the wires page on both web and mobile banking.

  • Wire Disclosure – Disclosures on wires; this is displayed on the wires page for both desktop and mobile banking.

  • Features Requiring Elevated Authentication > Wires – Determines whether a user must complete a two-factor authentication step prior to submitting a wire. After a user completes the two-factor authentication step, they remain in Elevated Authentication Mode for the length of time in seconds that is specified by Elevated Authentication Mode Duration setting. To ensure that a user has sufficient time to receive and enter their authentication code, this value is typically no less than 20 seconds.

  • Business Close Time – Time in minutes that the financial institution closes. For example, 1020 is 5 PM. Utilized for wire processing if 'Use Business Hours For Wire Delivery' is enabled and utilized for Audit Log delivery if 'Use Business Hours For Audit Delivery' is enabled.

  • Business Days of Week – Days of the week that the financial institution is open. 

  • Business Open Time Minutes – Time in minutes that the financial institution opens. For example, 540 is 9 AM. This is used for wire processing if the Use Business Hours For Wire Delivery institution setting is enabled. This is used for Audit Log delivery if the Use Business Hours For Audit Delivery institution setting is enabled.

For information on the institution settings used to customize the email communications about wires, go to End-User Communications.

Wire Statuses

Wires may have the following statuses when viewing wire transactions in Narmi Command:

  • Awaiting Dual Approval – Wire is pending approval by an additional business banking user with Collaborator permissions who has opted in to dual approvals. The wire has not yet been moved to your institution's review for processing. For more information, go to Dual Approvals.

  • Dual Approval Rejected – Wire was rejected via Dual Approvals and will not be processed.

  • Pending, Analyzing, Review, or Processing – These statuses are all at a state where the wire has not yet been processed but is moving through your institution's review and approval process before being submitted via SFTP. Wires are processed every 2 minutes. If there is an SFTP connectivity issue, such as an expired authentication password, the pending transactions will be processed once connectivity is re-established. Wires are never duplicated in Narmi.

    • Pending – Wire is ready to be sent. Once processed, “pending” wires get marked as “processed.”

    • Analyzing – Wire is in Know Your Customer (KYC) evaluation

    • Review – Wire is in manual review

    • Processing – Wire is in the process of being sent

  • Processed (in transit) – Wire has been processed by your institution, and SFTP has occurred. No additional action is needed; however, a wire in this state may encounter issues from the receiving institution or wire beneficiary. Narmi does not have immediate visibility into these potential issues.

  • Canceled – Your institution's staff has canceled the wire, and it will not be processed further.

  • Rejected by staff – Your institution's staff has rejected the wire, and it will not be processed further.

Wire transactions showing various statuses including processed, rejected, and pending approvals.