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Common Questions

What is a BIC used for?
What is a BIC used for?

In payments a BIC is used to identify a specific business, most commonly a bank. In some countries the bank code portion...

So what does a BIC look like?
So what does a BIC look like?

There are two different formats: full BICs are 11 characters long, but they can be 8 characters ?C in which case they ar...

What are IBANs and SWIFT codes?
What are IBANs and SWIFT codes?

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number, which you can use when making or receiving international payments....

The SWIFT code is an 8 or 11 alphanumeric characters code that uniquely identifies financial institution. When 8-digits code is given, it refers to the primary office. If a SWIFT code is eleven characters, this means that the bank has added a three-digit code to denote a specific branch of a bank. The code formatted as below;

For Example: AAAA BB CC DDD

  • First 4 characters - bank code (only letters)
  • Next 2 characters - ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (only letters)
  • Next 2 characters - location code (letters and digits) (passive participant will have "1" in the second character)
  • Last 3 characters - branch code, optional ('XXX' for primary office) (letters and digits)

The above mentioned format of Bank Identifier Codes (BIC) or Swift Code is approved by the International Standard Organization (ISO) and represents a particular bank or bank branch.

Currently, there are over 40,000 “live” Swift codes. The "live" codes are for the partners who are actively connected to the Swift network. On top of that, there are more than 50,000 additional codes, which are used for manual transactions. These additional codes are for the passive participants. The registrations of Swift Codes are handled by Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (“SWIFT”) and their headquarters is located in La Hulpe, Belgium. SWIFT is the registered trademarks of S.W.I.F.T. SCRL with a registered address at Avenue Adèle 1, B-1310 La Hulpe, Belgium.

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