What is a swift code, and whats a swift code actually identifying?

Reading a code you have been given

1. Count the characters. Eight or eleven, and nothing else. NatWest states the rule: "A BIC (sometimes referred to as SWIFT code) is a unique set of characters, being either 8 or 11 numbers and letters." A ten-character code has lost a character somewhere in a copy and paste.
2. Check the country block. Characters five and six are the ISO country code. GB for the United Kingdom, US for the United States. If a supplier says they bank in Britain and sends you a code whose fifth and sixth characters are not GB, stop and ask before you send anything.
3. Recognise the institution block. The first four letters are the institution. Barclays publishes its own openly: "they'll need to know our SWIFT code: BUKBGB22", where BUKB is Barclays. Once you have seen a few, the institution block is usually readable at a glance.
4. Treat the last three as optional. Where eleven characters are given, the final three identify a branch or a department, and XXX means the bank's main office. Santander UK publishes the eleven-character form for exactly this reason.

Why the standard is public and the directory is not

SWIFT describes the code as "the International ISO standard" for identifying business parties, which means the format is documented and anybody can check a code's shape against it. What is not public is the register of which code belongs to which institution: that is a licensed directory, and it is the reason lookup sites exist and the reason this index does not try to be one. Reading a bank's own page is slower and covers fewer banks; it is also the only way to publish a code and be able to say exactly where it came from.

When you need one, and when you do not

You need a SWIFT code when money crosses a border or a currency, and not otherwise. A payment between two UK accounts in pounds uses the sort code and account number and will never ask for a BIC. The Co-operative Bank frames the international case plainly, describing a SWIFT transfer as "an electronic payment of any amount, to almost anywhere in the world" that "normally takes between 1-4 working days to complete". That timing, rather than the code itself, is usually what the person asking actually wants to know.

The intermediary bank nobody mentions

Some institutions cannot receive an international payment directly and publish a second code for the bank that receives it on their behalf. Nationwide does this in the open: "Intermediary Bank (HSBC) BIC is MIDLGB22." If you are sending to a building society or a smaller institution and the payment is rejected, a missing intermediary BIC is a common cause, and the receiving institution's own help pages are where it will be published if it exists.

Questions people ask

Is SWIFT code the same as BIC?

Yes, the same code under two names. Banks use the two words interchangeably, and several use both on the same page.

Where is my own bank's SWIFT code?

On the bank's international payments help page, where most UK banks publish it openly, and in the account details screen of your banking app. Starling, for example, publishes the derivation as well as the code.

Does a SWIFT code identify my account?

No. It stops at the institution. The account is identified by the IBAN in the UK and by the account number and routing number in the United States.

The same question in the other market

• Sort code checker across the index
• SWIFT code across the index
• Bank identification code across the index
• Account number across the index
• IBAN number UK across the index