What is bank SWIFT code?

In 1973, 239 banks from 15 countries got together to solve a common problem: how to communicate about cross-border payments? and as a result of this, they formed a cooperative utility named the “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”(SWIFT), headquartered in La Hulpe, Belgium. Bank SWIFT codes are used when transferring money between banks, particularly for international wire transfers.

This cooperative society was founded based on the thought of creating a global financial messaging service and a common language for international financial messaging to ease the cross-border payment mechanism. Now more than 200 countries with 11000 financial and non-financial institutions provide payments services using SWIFT across the globe.

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What is SWIFT Code?

ISO 9362 (also known as SWIFT-BIC, BIC code, SWIFT ID, or SWIFT code) assigns a unique standard format of Business Identifier Codes which is approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for each financial and non-financial institution. The full form of SWIFT is “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”. SWIFT is characteristically a messaging network that is used by financial institutions to transmit information and instructions for payments from one bank to another bank especially cross-border payments through a standardized code.

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SWIFT codes have eight or eleven codes used by financial and non-financial institutions for transferring money quickly, accurately, and securely between banks, specially for international wire transfers, and also for exchanging of other messages between banks.

Inside of a SWIFT Code

Swift code consists of 8 or 11 characters that codes are also called Bank Identifier Code (BIC), SWIFT ID, or ISO 9362 code. For better understanding; how the code is assigned, let’s look at our central bank, Bangladesh Bank, address MOTIJHEEL COMMERCIAL AREA, EXTENTION BUILDING-2. It has the 11-character SWIFT code;

BBHO BD DH XXX

First Four characters – bank code of Bangladesh Bank (letters only)
Next Two characters – ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code of Bangladesh (letters only)
Next Two characters – location code (letters and digits) (passive participant will have “1” in the second character).
Last Three characters – branch code, optional (‘XXX’ for primary office) (letters and digits). Bangladesh Bank has Eight branches across the country each branch has unique code.

Who Uses SWIFT?

At the time of its inception, SWIFT founders draw up plans that the network will be used to facilitate communication about Treasury and correspondent transactions only. But gradually SWIFT extended its services to the following:

• Banks
• Brokerage Institutes and Trading Houses
• Securities Dealers
• Asset Management Companies
• Clearing Houses
• Depositories
• Exchanges
• Corporate Business Houses
• Treasury Market Participants and Service Providers
• Foreign Exchange and Money Brokers.

Bank SWIFT codes are used by banks operating in Bangladesh:

Here is a list of primary SWIFT codes of 61 banks those are now operating in Bangladesh. If you want to have 11 characters SWIFT code for a specific branch of a bank, you can go to the respective bank’s official website to get the branch SWIFT code mentioned in the following table.