I am new to wire processing and have a question.
We have been receiving quite a few incoming wires on FEDLINE where the sender bank is a HSBC, Wells Fargo and BOA where the originator's address is foreign. There are no swift codes or a separate originating/intermediate bank identified. They do all have payment notification tags with indicator 4.

I know the sending banking has branches located in the countries were the originator resides. Assuming the originator is a customer of one of the large banks in their country (HSBC, Wells Fargo and BOA), is it required to put the foreign branch of large bank in the originating FI tab to show the FI flow? I may be over simplifying but if the originator goes into the foreign branch of HSBC and says they want to do a USD wire to US, could it be a matter of interbank GL entries (paying peter to pay paul) then have US-HSBC act as the sender. This would possibly explain no SWIFT nor originating/intermediate FI. We are just getting so many of this situation and would like to be able to identify cross border incoming wires where a SWIFT code is not present. Thanks for helping to clarify!

if HSBC has a branch in London, and someone goes in and says "I want to wire $5,000 to my cousin in the US and want to do in $US, they do through their wire system, which can access Fedwire, so there is no need for swift. as HSBC is the originating bank on the wire, they are listed as the originating bank. there is no need to designate which of their branches originated it. I supposed you could use the originator's address as a starting point, but even that does not guarantee it was a cross border transaction.

for example, say Bill Jones is a resident of Auckland, MZ, but happens to be in the US visiting his cousin Dave Jones. Bill decides he is going to purchase a car from Dave and ship it back home. So, Bill and Dave head to the nearest branch of HSBC, in the good old US of A, and Bill tells the friendly banker that he banks there and needs to transfer money to his cousin Dave. Which HSBC kindly does. From a US Branch. debiting Bill's checking account. which is housed in NZ. and Bill as the originator shows a NZ address. But, the wire was 100% in the US. so even that is not a guarantee that it would catch it.