The acronym SWIFT means “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”. It is a global network in which payments between countries are processed. On the other hand, BIC stands for “Bank Identifier Code” and is a sequence of characters, composed of letters and numbers, that are needed to assign an international transfer.

The terms "BIC" and "SWIFT" are often used interchangeably in the daily life when it comes to mention the code for international payments.

This depends on the banks. In some cases, some banks use the same SWIFT code whatever the branch. In other cases, some banks prefers to have a dedicated SWIFT code for each branches.

If you want to know which branch is mentioned is your SWIFT code, you have to check the last digits. If your code ends with XXX, this means that you have the SWIFT code of the headquarters. If not, it means that you have the code of one of the local branches.

If you are unsure on which SWIFT code you should use, we have developed a SWIFT code finder tool by bank name.

If, by any chance, you send the wrong payment to a SWIFT code that does exist, the receiving bank must flag that they do not manage your recipient's account and reverse the payment.

If you realise that you've used the wrong SWIFT code, you should contact your bank immediately and ask them to cancel the transaction.

In order to avoid these unpleasant situations, at Qonto we have created a SWIFT codes finder tool, that will help you in finding/checking the SWIFT codes before making your money transfer.