quoting Rhetorica, Illúbequía: Dis, Major Belt 1:

As a fellow holder of a spurious MSc (my PhD program gives one to you as a kind of "one third of the way there!" checkpoint), welcome to the club! Again, purely as a formality.

That's actually the kind of M.S. I have: granted en route to my Ph.D., without a thesis, and not a terminal degree, but necessary for the application I made (and will be making again, because like hell I'm going to give up despite failure the first time around) to the FNR in the magical land known as Luxembourg for a Ph.D. research grant. And thanks.

quoting Jipí, Alkali Metal, Canada:

Please accept my congratulations, as a pure formality, of course.

Said congratulations as part of a formality are most formally accepted.