22

I'm helping a friend with submitting an expenses claim to a US organisation we're both involved with. As the money is coming from a US bank, we can't just give them an IBAN and a BIC and be done with it. Instead, we've got to supply full swift details.

My bank publishes their swift code. Comparing that to the BIC on my statement, it's similar, but different. (The BIC I've been told is 3 characters longer, and the 4th character from the end is not the same as the last character in the Swift code.)

Answers.com claims that Swift and BIC codes are the same thing, and that's what my friend was told when she asked her bank for its swift details. My bank however disagrees...

That makes me think that some banks have their Swift and BIC codes be the same, but that isn't required. Anyone know if that's the case?

Gagravarr
  • 802
  • 3
  • 9
  • 21

2 Answers2

23

IBAN -> is International Bank Account Number. The number is constructed in such a way that it uniquely identifies your account in the world. I.e. it has a country in it, Bank (and branch) and the actual account number. This is an international standard adopted by the EU, Australia and NZ. Going forward it would be sufficient to just quote the IBAN for payment without any other details.

BIC, SWIFT Code, SWIFT BIC, SWIFT ID [all mean the same] is a Bank Identifier Code [More correctly Business Identifier Code] that is again an International standard and used on all International payments. The SWIFT BIC is constructed as

  • 4 Chars Bank Code [As issued by SWIFT]
  • 2 Chars of Country Code [ISO Country Code standard]
  • 2 Chars of Location Code [Issued by SWIFT in consultation with country]
  • 3 Chars of Branch Code decided by the individual Bank [This is optional]

Hence SWIFT BIC can be 8 Chars or 11 Chars. The additional 3 Chars help bank identify the Branch where the account is held and where the payment needs to be made.

So LOYDGB2L is the main head office

  • BIC LOYD-> Lloyds TSB
  • GB-> Great Britain
  • 2L->London

If your branch is, say, in Canary Wharf, the SWIFT BIC would be LOYDGB21 [21-> Canary Wharf] with a 3 digit branch added.

Dheer
  • 57,348
  • 18
  • 89
  • 170
2

BIC and IBANN are used in EU (and some other OECD countries) for inter bank transfers.

SWIFT is used everywhere for interbank transfers. In the US - IBAN system is not (yet, hopefully) available, so you have to use SWIFT.

The codes may look the same, but these are different systems.

More details here.

littleadv
  • 190,863
  • 15
  • 314
  • 526