Swift Code

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication / SWIFT are now standarisized as BIC / Business Identifier Codes. Swift codes have been issued to more than 7500 financial institutions which is connected via BIC network and more than 10000 additional codes for manual transaction. BIC codes are approvded by the ISO / International Organization for Standardization. These are unique identity codes which are 8 or 11 characters.

In a Swift code of bank or non financial institutions:

• First four character describe the Bank or Institution code
• Next two character describe the Country code
• Next two character are location code [If: second character is 0 then is is a typically a test BIC, 1 then it denotes the passive participant, 2 then it typically indicates a reverse billing BIC where recipient pays for the message]
• 3 letters indicate branc code, optional ['XXX' for primary office]

If the Swift / BIC code is 8 digit then it may be assumed that it refers to the primary office.

Official website for Swift Code is: https://www2.swift.com/directories/.