A telegraphic transfer is an electronic bank-to-bank payment of funds across borders, the name surviving from cable instructions long after the cable did. Banks use it loosely for any wire sent through correspondent channels or a messaging network; no rulebook assigns the phrase a meaning, and different banks apply it to different products with different cut-off times, charging conventions and settlement paths. So “payment by telegraphic transfer” in a contract says almost nothing: it does not fix when value is received, who bears correspondent deductions, or which rate applies to a conversion. Those need stating expressly — value date, charge allocation between sender and beneficiary, and the currency of the account credited — because the term will not supply them.
Why this entry carries no source list. This lexicon cites an official primary source wherever one exists and says so plainly where none does. This term is market convention: it was coined by commercial practice, it is used by everyone in the trade, and no body defines it. Pointing at a carrier’s tariff, a bank’s product page or a trade association’s explainer would dress one participant’s usage as a general rule. The practical upshot runs through the paragraph above — where the word carries no fixed meaning, the contract has to supply one.