ISO 9362 - Structure

Structure

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.