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What is SWIFT?
SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence. More than 9,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries trust us every day to exchange millions of standardised financial messages.
History of SWIFT
In 1973, banks still communicated via telex — not very secure, minimum standards and not automated either. Imagine receiving 10,000 telexes a day. So, 239 banks from 15 countries formed a cooperative to “automate the telex”. They called it the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (no “s” at the end). S.W.I.F.T.
SWIFT Today
SWIFT are now one of the prime network providers for movement of cash between banks (the average daily value of SWIFT payment messages today is over $5 trillion!), and for many other types of transactions. SWIFT provide a financial EDI infrastructure, offering Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and Electronic Trade Confirmation (ETC), allowing the banks and other parties involved, the message partners, to have Straight Through Processing (STP). The idea is to substantially reduce the time taken to process a transaction from a few days (as is only possible conducting the transaction manually), to within a day.
Bottom Line:
The reason money can be moved so quickly from one financial institution to another today, is because of SWIFT. They key to all this? A numerical code called a SWIFT or BIC code.
SWIFT Codes or BIC Codes
One of SWIFT’s crucial functions is to allocate SWIFT codes (which have now been renamed BIC codes). The SWIFT or BIC code is a unique alphanumerical identifier that can be used to identify any financial institution worldwide. This includes brokerage firms, clearing houses, investment managers, stock exchanges, securities deposit organizations and banks. Every bank has a different code, and they use it whenever money is wired from one bank to another. So if you need to wire money to any bank, it helps if you know the SWIFT code, which you can get from the receiving bank. Of course you’ll also need the account number that you are sending to.
These different BICs may be for different services, and separate BICs are used for test and live, as a precaution against accidentally publishing test feeds into production.
Iraq SWIFT Codes: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence. More than 9,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries trust us every day to exchange millions of standardised financial messages.
History of SWIFT
In 1973, banks still communicated via telex — not very secure, minimum standards and not automated either. Imagine receiving 10,000 telexes a day. So, 239 banks from 15 countries formed a cooperative to “automate the telex”. They called it the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (no “s” at the end). S.W.I.F.T.
SWIFT Today
SWIFT are now one of the prime network providers for movement of cash between banks (the average daily value of SWIFT payment messages today is over $5 trillion!), and for many other types of transactions. SWIFT provide a financial EDI infrastructure, offering Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and Electronic Trade Confirmation (ETC), allowing the banks and other parties involved, the message partners, to have Straight Through Processing (STP). The idea is to substantially reduce the time taken to process a transaction from a few days (as is only possible conducting the transaction manually), to within a day.
Bottom Line:
The reason money can be moved so quickly from one financial institution to another today, is because of SWIFT. They key to all this? A numerical code called a SWIFT or BIC code.
SWIFT Codes or BIC Codes
One of SWIFT’s crucial functions is to allocate SWIFT codes (which have now been renamed BIC codes). The SWIFT or BIC code is a unique alphanumerical identifier that can be used to identify any financial institution worldwide. This includes brokerage firms, clearing houses, investment managers, stock exchanges, securities deposit organizations and banks. Every bank has a different code, and they use it whenever money is wired from one bank to another. So if you need to wire money to any bank, it helps if you know the SWIFT code, which you can get from the receiving bank. Of course you’ll also need the account number that you are sending to.
These different BICs may be for different services, and separate BICs are used for test and live, as a precaution against accidentally publishing test feeds into production.
Iraq SWIFT Codes: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
