ISO 9362 (also known as SWIFT-BIC, BIC code, SWIFT ID or SWIFT code) is a standard format of Business Identifier Codes approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It is a unique identification code for both financial and non-financial institutions.[1] (When assigned to a non-financial institution, a code may also be known as a Business Entity Identifier or BEI.) These codes are used when transferring money between banks, particularly for international wire transfers, and also for the exchange of other messages between banks. The codes can sometimes be found on account statements.
The overlapping issue between ISO 9362 and ISO 13616 is discussed in the article International Bank Account Number (also called IBAN). The SWIFT network does not require a specific format for the transaction so the identification of accounts and transaction types is left to agreements of the transaction partners. In the process of the Single Euro Payments Area the European central banks have agreed on a common format based on IBAN and BIC including an XML-based transmission format for standardized transactions; the TARGET2 is a joint gross clearing system in the European Union that does not require the SWIFT network for transmission (see EBICS). The TARGET-directory lists all the BICs of the banks that are attached to the TARGET2-network being a subset of the SWIFT-directory of BICs.
The latest edition is ISO 9362:2009 (dated 2009-10-01). The SWIFT code is 8 or 11 characters, made up of:
4 letters: Institution Code or bank code.
2 letters: ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code
2 letters or digits: location code
if the second character is "0", then it is typically a test BIC as opposed to a BIC used on the live network.
if the second character is "1", then it denotes a passive participant in the SWIFT network
if the second character is "2", then it typically indicates a reverse billing BIC, where the recipient pays for the message
as opposed to the more usual mode whereby the sender pays for the message.
3 letters or digits: branch code, optional ('XXX' for primary office)
Where an 8-digit code is given, it may be assumed that it refers to the primary office.
SWIFT Standards, a division of The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), handles the registration of these codes. Because SWIFT originally introduced what was later standardized as Business Identifier Codes (BICs), they are still often called SWIFT addresses or codes.
The 2009 update of ISO 9362 broadened the scope to include non-financial institutions, before then BIC was commonly understood to be an acronym for Bank Identifier Code.
There are over 7,500 "live" codes (for partners actively connected to the BIC network) and an estimated 10,000 additional BIC codes which can be used for manual transactions.
Search SWIFT Code BIC by country or by Bank Name http://www.codeswiftbic.com/
