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Fedwire® Testing Opportunities Frequently Asked Questions

Federal Reserve Financial Services is committed to providing the answers and information you need. Answers to many of our customers most frequently asked questions can be found using the links below.

If your question is not answered by the information provided on the site, My FedDirectorySM provides a comprehensive list of service and support contacts who can assist you.

Fedwire Questions

Q: What application cycle dates will be used in the testing environments?

A: In the Depository Institution Testing (DIT) environment, the Fedwire Funds Service and Fedwire Securities Service cycle date will be the current date Monday through Friday. Friday's cycle date is held over for continued testing on Saturday. The sequence number and Lterm totals will be a continuation of Friday as well.

For Saturday testing in the production environment, the cycle date is typically, but not always, the previous Thursday's date. Please check the Saturday production-testing schedule for the appropriate cycle date.

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Q: What end-of-day reports are available in the testing environments?

A: For both the DIT and production environments, the final Lterm totals and batch-acknowledgments are sent approximately 10 minutes beyond the scheduled cut-off time. Securities Clearing Summaries are created and delivered to online customers at 8 p.m. Subsidiary statements (i.e., holding reports), funds and securities daily activity statements are created nightly approximately two hours after the scheduled testing cutoff time. Prior arrangements must be made with your Federal Reserve Bank Fedwire Testing Contacts to receive electronic delivery of the subsidiary and/or activity statements). To receive an end of day report, you must be connected to the test system when the reports are sent.

Following the completion of end of day processing, the test environments are reinitialized (cleared) for the next day's testing.

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Q: How do I test my software's ability to process undelivered messages from a previous day?

A: Wednesdays are the designated day to test for previous days' undelivered messages in the DIT. Messages undelivered from Wednesday testing will remain on queues for delivery when communications are reestablished on Thursday morning. These messages will have the previous day's cycle date. Any final batch acknowledgments, term grand totals, reports, and transfer messages that were not picked up will be included. Every other day, undelivered messages are cleared from the queues prior to start-up on the next testing day.

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Q: How can I receive a copy of the Accounting Reconciliation File?

A: You must contact your local Federal Reserve Bank Fedwire Testing Contact in advance to receive the Accounting Reconciliation File. The file will be created from production data from the preceding Thursday night. Requests for files with special data will require significantly more lead-time.

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Q: What do I need to do to perform Account Balance Monitoring System (ABMS)/Payment System Risk (PSR) inquiries in the testing environments?

A: You must contact your local Federal Reserve Bank Fedwire Testing Contact in advance if you would like to process Account Balance Monitoring System (ABMs)/Payment System Risk (PSR) inquiries in the testing environments.

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Q: What are my options for receiving messages in the testing environments?

A: Several options for generating incoming test messages are available to your institution. These options and their characteristics are outlined in the table below.

Source of Incoming Test Messages Characteristics
Previous Days' Messages (Re-queuers) Funds/Securities You may ask your Federal Reserve Bank Fedwire Testing Contact to send you, in the testing environment, some or all of your incoming messages from a previous day's production activities. These messages will contain real account information that will allow you to fully test any backend systems.
"Canned" Messages (Funds Only) You may ask the Federal Reserve Bank Fedwire Testing Contact to send you a set of generic messages we have created. Sets are available that test every type of message you could receive via Fedwire Services. Because these are generic messages, however, they will not contain account information specific to your financial institution.
Your institution You may send messages to yourself in the test environment in test mode only in the production environment on Saturdays.
Other test participants While testing in any of the Federal Reserve Banks' testing environments, you may receive incoming messages from other test participants. This traffic will be unpredictable in terms of timing and types of messages.

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Q: How do I coordinate testing with branches and/or affiliates served by another Federal Reserve Bank?

A: The Federal Reserve's objective is to not let our District boundaries interfere with your ability to complete your testing. Contact your Federal Reserve Bank Fedwire Testing Contact and tell them your needs. Your test contact can coordinate your testing with other Reserve Banks as needed.

For more information about the Fedwire Funds Service, Fedwire Securities Service or the National Settlement Service, visit the service offerings pages or contact your account executive

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