I am an investor immigrating to the United States. When I went to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to remit money to an overseas company, I followed the guidance of the bank staff and first filled out the "Personal Foreign Exchange Purchase Application Form," then the "Overseas Remittance Application Form." At the last moment, I was informed by the staff that I must fill in the SWIFT CODE; otherwise, the remittance could not be completed. I told the staff that the American bank said a SWIFT CODE was not needed, and asked if the Routing Number would suffice. She replied that a SWIFT CODE was necessary; otherwise, the receiving bank could not be located, and the wire transfer would not reach its destination smoothly. I then searched for information about SWIFT CODE on Google but did not find much clarity. Just when I was feeling frustrated, I suddenly thought of the Routing Number. Could it be that the Routing Number is the same as the SWIFT CODE? I immediately searched for Routing Number on Google and found out that the Routing Number is not the same as the SWIFT CODE, but it serves the same function. To help those who are going abroad or remitting money overseas avoid confusion, I will briefly introduce the relevant knowledge about Routing Numbers and SWIFT Codes.
1. Definition
ROUTING NUMBER, also known as Routing Transit Number or ABA Number, is a financial institution identification code proposed by the ABA (American Bankers Association) under the supervision and assistance of the Federal Reserve. Many financial institutions have a ROUTING NUMBER, which is mainly used for bank-related transactions, routing confirmations for transfers, settlements, etc. It consists of 9 digits (8 digits plus 1 check digit) and is primarily used in the United States and North America.
SWIFT is the abbreviation for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The SWIFT Code is a bank identification code proposed by this association and approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Its original name was BIC (Bank Identifier Code), but the term BIC is too generic, and there were concerns that it might be confused with other bank identification code systems. Therefore, it has gradually become customary to refer to BIC as SWIFT Code. This code is equivalent to the identification number of each bank. Every bank (including each branch) has a code composed of the English abbreviation of the bank's name, the English abbreviation of the head office's location (sometimes represented by a combination of numbers and letters indicating a city), and the code of the branch's location (letters, numbers, or a mix).
Internationally, the SWIFT Code of banks follows a unified format, for example: BKCHCNBJ110. The first 1-4 digits represent a unified code for a bank (Bank of China is BKCH), the 5-6 digits represent the country code (China is CN), the 7-8 digits represent the city code (Beijing is BJ), and 110 represents the Beijing branch. The SWIFT Code of the head office does not include a location code and consists of 8 digits (e.g., the head office of Bank of China is BKCHCNBJ), while others are 11 digits.
The SWIFT codes of major banks in China:
Bank of China: BKCHCNBJ
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China: ICBKCNBJ
China Construction Bank: PCBCCNBJ
Agricultural Bank of China: ABOCCNBJ
China Merchants Bank: CMBCCNBS
Bank of Communications: COMMCN
CITIC Bank: CIBKCNBJ
Industrial Bank: FJIBCNBA
Minsheng Bank: MSBCCNBJ
Huaxia Bank: HXBKCN
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank: SPDBCNSH
HSBC: HSBCCNSH
Standard Chartered Bank: SCBLCNSX
Citi Bank: CITICNSX
Deutsche Bank: DEUTCNSH
UBS: UBSWCNBJ
ABN AMRO: ABNACNSH
HSBC Hong Kong: BLICHKHK
Citi Hong Kong: CITIHK
Bank of East Asia Hong Kong: BEASCNSH
Hang Seng Bank: HASECNSHBEJ
The branch's Arabic numeral code needs to be added uniformly after the code.
2. Querying SWIFT Code
To query a bank's SWIFT Code, the recommended methods are (1) directly asking the bank staff, (2) calling for consultation. Of course, friends who are familiar with English can search online; logging into the SWIFT website allows you to query any bank's SWIFT Code.
The official website of SWIFT: http://www.swift.com/biconline/
After entering the website, if you know the bank's SWIFT code (BIC Code) or institution keyword, you can quickly find its information; for example, the keyword for Bank of China is Bank of China. By entering it, you can query the SWIFT Code of Bank of China's branches worldwide, including codes from various regions in mainland China. From the search results, you can see that the first 8 digits of the mainland branches are all BKCHCNBJ, and you can directly input these 8 digits in the BIC search to list the SWIFT Codes of Bank of China branches across the country.
3. The Relationship and Use of SWIFT Code and Routing Number
SWIFT Code and Routing Number are both types of international wire transfer codes used by banks, differing only in the regions where they are used; banks in the United States and North America generally use Routing Numbers, while most countries and regions outside North America and Europe use SWIFT CODES. Chinese banks use SWIFT CODES, which essentially serve the same function as Routing Numbers in North America, but SWIFT CODES are more commonly used internationally.
If remitting money from China to abroad, you need to choose the corresponding wire transfer code based on the location of the recipient's bank. For example, if remitting to a bank account in the United States through a bank in China, you only need to provide the Routing Number of the American bank; moreover, American banks generally only use Routing Numbers and rarely use SWIFT Codes.
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