The full form of SWIFT is "Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication". The headquarter of this Society is at
La Hulpe, Belgium.. It handles the granting of codes to banks across
the world and thus we can say that registration of SWIFT codes is handled by
this Society.
As such "SWIFT" is the registered trademarks of S.W.I.F.T. SCRL with its
Registered Office being at ' Avenue Adèle 1, B-1310 La Hulpe, Belgium'.
SWIFT Codes are Used for What Purpose ?
SWIFT codes are a standard format of Bank Identifier Codes and
each bank has a unique identification code. Thus SWIFT is also
sometimes known as BIC. The SWIFT code is used for exchanging
messages between banks. The most popular messages sent through SWIFT
relate to transferring money between banks i.e. international wire transfers.
Thus, in case you wish to transfer funds across countries, bank may ask you to
give SWIFT code of the bank where you wish to transfer your funds.
What does different digits of SWIFT indicate ?
The full SWIFT code for a branch consists of 11 characters (last
three characters are branch code). Thus, sometimes 8 digit code is also
given for a bank. The code thus consists of :-
(a) First FOUR characters
: Bank Code (consists of only letters);
(b) Next TWO
characters : ISO 3166-1 alpha- 2 country code (only letters)
(c) Next TWO
characters : Location Code (letters and digits) [Passive
participants will have 1 in the second character]
(d) Last THREE characters :
These are optional and are used for branch specific codes (For primary offices
they use "XXX") - These can be letters and digits
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