Guarantees

A guarantee (bank guarantee, demand guarantee) is a bank's promise to pay a beneficiary if the applicant doesn't perform: doesn't deliver, doesn't pay back an advance, doesn't finish the work. The beneficiary claims (invokes) it to be paid. On Multigate you handle both sides:

• Inward guarantees: guarantees issued in your favour (you're the beneficiary). Your bank's SWIFT message (MT760) arrives on Multigate; you check it, complete it and advise it.
• Outward guarantees: guarantees you apply for (you're the applicant), for example a performance, advance payment or bid guarantee for a customer. You draft the application, an approver signs it off, and Multigate sends it to your bank.

Read Trade finance first: it explains the permissions, the maker-checker workflow and the conventions these endpoints share (string IDs, DD/MM/YYYY dates, no webhooks).

Before you start

• The Trade Finance module for your business, and an API user with the trade finance permissions (see Who can do what).
• MG_BASE_URL and MG_API_KEY, as in the Quickstart.
• For outward guarantees: the beneficiary saved as a beneficiary (you send its beneficiaryId), and your issuing bank's BIC (SWIFT code).

Find your guarantees

• List guarantees returns inward and outward guarantees together.
• List inward guarantees and List outward guarantees filter one direction, by status, approval status and date.

Trade finance sends no webhooks. To pick up new inward guarantees and changes, poll the lists and read the details of records that are new or changed. Your users also get an email for each step.

Inward guarantees

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    participant Bank as Advising bank
    participant MG as Multigate
    participant Maker
    participant Checker as Approver
    Bank-)MG: SWIFT MT760
    MG-)Maker: Email "Inward Guarantee Received", status pending
    Maker->>MG: POST /guarantees/inward/{id}/create-instrument
    MG-)Checker: Email "Guarantee Advice Request"
    Checker->>MG: POST /guarantees/inward/{id}/approve
    MG-->>Checker: status advised

curl -s -X POST "$MG_BASE_URL/trade-finance-service/api/v1/guarantees/inward/$GUARANTEE_ID/create-instrument" \
  -H "mp-api-key: $MG_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "internalInstrumentReference": "IG-2026-0077",
    "supplierName": "Acme Construction Ltd",
    "statusOnExpiry": "extension_required"
  }'

Like export LCs, a newer version of a guarantee you've advised arrives as a new pending record: merge it into the existing instrument by its internalInstrumentReference. To change your own fields on an advised guarantee, a maker requests an update and an approver approves or declines it.

Amendments

When the issuing bank amends the guarantee (SWIFT MT767), it moves to amended with hasPendingAmendment: true. As the beneficiary, you decide whether the new terms apply to you, and your answer goes back to the bank over SWIFT, so two people review it first.

1. A maker accepts the amendment (update this record, or create a new record with its own internal reference) or refuses it.
2. An approver approves the response, which sends it to the bank over SWIFT, or rejects it.

After approval the guarantee is accepted_amendment or refused_amendment. If you chose to create a new record, the new record carries the amended details and the original stays amended. If the approver rejects the response, nothing is sent and the guarantee stays amended, with hasPendingAmendment still true, until a maker responds again. Read the guarantee before retrying an approval that timed out: the response may already have gone to the bank.

While an amendment is open, the guarantee is locked: creating or updating its instrument, and raising or approving an update request, fail with "Guarantee has an active amendment request and cannot be modified". Finish the amendment first. amendment in the guarantee's details always shows the latest amendment, also after it was answered.

Claims, extensions and expiry

Multigate keeps the guarantee's working figures up to date from what your team records:

• Current value: the amount minus the discharges you record.
• Unpaid claims: the claims received minus the claims settled.
• Ageing: days left until expiry, using the latest expiry of any extension you record. It's refreshed every night, but only for guarantees that are pending or advised (inward) or draft, pending or applied (outward); it's also recalculated whenever the record changes.

These figures don't change the status: a guarantee isn't marked expired, claimed or discharged automatically. Record those outcomes in your own fields (statusOnExpiry, materialStatus, remarks), and set up expiry reminders so nothing lapses unnoticed.

Outward guarantees

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    participant Maker
    participant MG as Multigate
    participant Checker as Approver
    participant Bank as Issuing bank
    Maker->>MG: POST /guarantees/outward/save (draft)
    Maker->>MG: POST /guarantees/outward/submit
    MG-)Checker: Email "Outward Guarantee Approval Request"
    Checker->>MG: POST /guarantees/outward/{id}/approve
    MG->>Bank: Application
    MG-->>Checker: status applied
    Bank-)MG: Issued
    MG-)Maker: Email "Outward Guarantee Issued", status issued

Amendments and instrument updates

• Amendments change the guarantee's terms with the bank: submit an amendment, then an approver reviews it. Approving sends it to the bank (pending_amendment); the bank's acceptance (amended) and the beneficiary's answer (accepted_amendment or refused_amendment) arrive later.
• Instrument updates change Multigate's record only (internal figures, extensions, claims, discharges, notes): check eligibility, save and submit the update, then an approver finds it with Get the pending instrument update and decides with Approve an instrument update request or Decline an instrument update request.

Both are only possible while the guarantee is issued or amended and has no amendment waiting.

Manual records

Record guarantees handled outside Multigate's SWIFT connection:

• Inward: save and submit an uploaded inward guarantee. A new inward upload's response doesn't include its ID: list inward guarantees with status=draft (or pending after submitting) to find it.
• Outward: save and submit an uploaded outward guarantee.

You choose the status the record should have; each operation lists the statuses it accepts. An approver approves it like any other record; nothing is sent to a bank.

Documents

Attach files (PDF, PNG or JPEG, up to 50 MB each) to an inward guarantee (outward guarantees have no document endpoints): upload one or several, list them, download one, get a temporary link (anyone with it can open the file for an hour) or delete one permanently.

Statuses

Other values (expired, claimed, discharged, under_claim and similar) are only set on manual records. The full lifecycle is in Status lifecycles.

Next steps

• Letters of credit.
• Dashboard, alerts and reports: expiry reminders and reports.
• Email notifications.