SWIFT was not compromised but misused, says Alain Raes

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) for years has been prodding Indian banks to use more structured messages instead of customised ones so that they can be audited easily. The issue with customised messages, identified by the suffix of 99, is that they are almost impossible to audit and SWIFT doesn’t validate these transactions. The Nirav Modi scam at Punjab National Bank (PNB) shows that banks are not listening. In an interaction with Anup Roy, Alain Raes, chief executive (Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific), SWIFT, said SWIFT was not compromised but misused. Edited excerpts: 

What are