Bank Identification Code (BIC)
Purpose:
The BIC is a universal method of identifying financial institutions, in order to facilitate the automated processing of telecommunication
messages in banking and related financial environments.
Structure:
The BIC consists of eight or eleven characters comprised of the following components:
- Bank code: 4 alphanumeric characters. So far, the Registration Authority (i.e., SWIFT) has only used alphabetic characters.
- Country code: 2-letter country code as specifed in ISO 3166.
- Location code: 2 alphanumeric characters attributed by the Registration Authority to identify the location of the institution within the specified country.
- Branch code (optional): 3 alphanumeric characters identifying a branch or a department of the financial institution.
Send to a Friend
Latest News
- Payments revolution gathers pace as cheque usage plummets (9 September 10)
- 4 million benefit recipients still prevented from using UK cash machine network (2 September 10)
- New reports reveal all about payments in the UK (23 August 10)