I think the most interesting thing is that each bank is left to interpret the 'spec' in it's own way. This leads to situations as you describe, where you can ea

I think the most interesting thing is that each bank is left to interpret the 'spec' in it's own way. This leads to situations as you describe, where you can easily get junk from your ODFI/RDFI. I say 'spec' because it's a very large book that's successful in not being very specific. AFAIK, there's no automatic way of tracing a claim to it's subsequent rejection, outside of doing it yourself. You would have thought that would be basic. And yes, pre-notes are slightly hilarious. In europe, we're moving towards SEPA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_20022 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_20022 (source: I implement financial IT stuff in the US, UK and Europe)