The problem Stored in a varchar column, payload_xml, we have xml that looks something like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <ReceiveMoneyParameters xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> ... <PaymentArrangementExternalReference> JT00009084 </PaymentArrangementExternalReference> ... </ReceiveMoneyParameters> I need to return the underlined section as a varchar. The solution With the help of Tim Chapman's article...