If you are not familiar with electronic funds transfer or electronic messaging, don't be dismayed. You don't need to know about this to use Find Bank to locate the financial institution that you are looking for.

If you would like to know more about these aspects of financial services, they are summarized in these search tips. You can click on links in this page to go to sites where you can get more information about the organisations involved.

Finding the right bank or bank branch is made fast and easy. Use this search facility to help you accurately choose the right bank or bank branch where the beneficiary account is located.

First key in what you know about the beneficiary bank

The search screen is divided into two sections. If you know the bank code or part of the bank code, then simply key it into the appropriate box in the codes section. If you know the bank name, the country or the location of the bank, then use the names section.

Starting your search

You start your search by first entering any information that you know about the financial institution then simply pressing the "Find Bank" button. Your search may find one or more banks that satisfy the search criteria that you enter. The search looks through up to 330,000 registered banks, financial institutions, exchange houses and corporate financial institutions.

Codes

You can identify a bank or bank branch by any one of its published codes. If you know just part of the code, you can key in the part you know and let the service search for banks meeting those criteria. You can use wild cards for those parts you don't know.

A bank may have a worldwide code issued by SWIFT or by CHIPS or a national code issued by a central agency in the country where the bank resides.

Names

This section should be used if you don't know any of the bank codes but have other information such as the name of the bank, its country or its location within the country.

Always select the country

You will always be asked to select the Beneficiary Bank Country where the beneficiary bank resides. This narrows your search considerably. If you don't know the name of the country where the bank resides, you cannot use the name searching service and will need to use the code searching service.

Enter what you know about the name of the bank

You can enter whatever words you know are in the name of the bank. Here you can choose where those words might be placed within the name. For example, all of those shown below would find "First National Provident Bank of New York".

• Starts with "First National"
• Starts with "First"
• Contains "National"
• Contains "First"
• Contains "Bank of"
• Ends with "York"
• Ends with "New York"

Enter what you know about the location of the bank

The location may be the name of a city, town, district or, in some cases, a street name, the name of a railway station or a port. So, location can be a difficult criterion to hit accurately. Consider these examples:

  •  A bank in Birmingham, UK may register its location as Edgbaston (a district in of Birmingham) rather than the city name.

  •  A bank located in Rome may register its location as Roma (in Italian) rather than Rome (in English).

In most cases, however, the location refers to the name of a city or town. You can be adventurous and use criteria such as "Starts with Rom" which would find all banks with locations in both Rome and Roma. Remember, however, that this will also find banks in places like Romano di Lombardia, also in Italy.

Show me Bank head offices only

This tick box lets you limit the search to find only the head-offices of the banks. Be careful how you use this filter as some banks have specialized branches for funds transfers that are not part of their head offices.

Choosing from the hit list

Your search may find any number of hits matching your criteria. However, if a large number of hits are returned it's a clear sign that you must narrow down your search. You can narrow the search by providing more information or by being more specific.

You can sort your hit list by various criteria.

You choose a bank from the list by clicking the radio button alongside the bank and then by pressing the Select button at the bottom of the page.

Once selected, full details of the bank, including any relevant bank codes, are automatically placed into your funds transfer instruction.

General Information

Wild Card Search

You can use wild cards in your search by putting an asterisk in front, at the back or in between parts of your criteria. For example, you might fill the CHIP code field with any of the following:

What is SWIFT?

SWIFT is a cooperative, owned by its members and supplying secure, standard message services between near 8,000 financial institutions in some 200 countries. The SWIFT community includes banks, brokers, dealers, exchanges and investment managers, as well as specific market infrastructures covering payments, securities, treasury, and trade products.

SWIFT Code

The SWIFT code is a financial institution identifier used by banks worldwide to support electronic funds transfer and other electronic messages between financial institutions. The SWIFT code is sometimes referred to as a BIC code or a BEI code.

The SWIFT code is made up of four parts that identify the financial institution, the country of that institution, the city within the country and finally an identifier to distinguish between the institutions branches or departments. For example, the SWIFT code "DABA DK KK KAS" can be broken down into parts as follows:

What is CHIPS?

CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payments System) is the premier bank-owned payments system for clearing and settling large value payments. CHIPS is a real-time, final payments system for U.S. dollars that uses bi-lateral and multi-lateral netting for maximum liquidity efficiency. CHIPS is the only large value system in the world that has the capability of carrying extensive remittance information for commercial payments. CHIPS processes over 267,000 payments a day with a gross value of over $1.37 trillion. It is a premier payments platform serving the largest banks from around the world, representing 22 countries worldwide.

CHIP Code

A six-digit code allocated to a financial institution by the US-based Clearing House Interbank Payment System. These codes are normally used in connection with USD transfers to financial institutions within the USA.

What is a national code?

A code issued by a clearinghouse or central bank in a particular country, to identify the financial institutions participating in the national clearing or settlement service. National codes can be allocated to financial institutions outside the specific country. In such cases, the national code allocated to the outside country financial institution is called a cross border code.

National Code

The search provides a list of national code types that allow you to select the particular national code type you wish to search. For example, the national code type "SC" refers to the United Kingdom branch sort code (BSC).

You select the appropriate national code type from the list, and then enter the national code value, with or without wild cards.

Glossary

AT national code	Austrian national financial institution identifier (5-digits, Bankleitzahl) from Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian National Bank).
AT national code	Australian national code (6-digits, BSB) from the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA).
BEI Code	Business entity identifier. The format is identical to that of a SWIFT code (BIC) but the financial institution is a business entity rather than a banking and finance entity.
BIC Code	Bank identifier code or SWIFT code.
BL national code	German national code (8-digits, Bankleitzahl) from the Deutsche Bundesbank.
Branch Code	An alphanumeric code of three characters, used to identify a specific branch of a financial institution and which forms the last three characters of an 11-character SWIFT code. The branch code may also identify a department or section within the institution, conducting a certain type of international business. By convention, the branch code "XXX" generally indicates the main location of a financial institution. However, this is not always the case. The product has advanced options that allow filtering out SWIFT codes that do not end with "XXX".
CC national code	Canadian national code (9-digits or 10-digits with check digit, FIF) from the Canadian Payments Association (CPA). The CPA operates the national clearing and settlement systems that facilitate this flow of funds between institutions.
CHIPS	US-based dollar clearing house. Clearing House Interbank Payment System.
CZ national code	Czech national code (4-digits) from the payments system under the Czech National Bank (CNB).
ES national code	Spanish national interbank domestic code (9-digits, OEF, Oficinas Entidades Financieras) of Bank of Spain (Banco de España).
HK national code	Hong Kong national domestic code (6-digits) from Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited (HKICL) under the Hong Kong Monetary Agency (HKMA).
HU national code	Hungary national domestic clearing code (8-digits, HUBC) from the Hungarian National Bank (Magyar Nemzeti Bank).
IE national code	Irish (Eire) national domestic clearing code (6-digits, NSC, National Sort Code) from Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO).
IT national code	Italian national domestic clearing code (10-digits, CAB, Codice Aviamento Bancario) from Società Interbancaria per l'Automazione (SIA).
NZ national code	New Zealand national domestic sort code (6-digits) from the New Zealand Bankers Association.
PL national code	Polish national domestic clearing code (8-digits) from Krajowa Izba Rozliczeniowa (KIR), National Clearing House Company.
PT national code	Portuguese national domestic clearing code (8-digits, NIB, Numero de Identificaçao Bancaria) from the Banco de Portugal and Sociedade Interbanc?ria de Serviços (SIBS).
RU national code	Russian Federation national central bank code (8-digits, RCBIC, Russian Central Bank Identification Code) under control of the Russian Central Bank.
SA national code	Saudi Arabia national clearing codes (4-characters, SARIE ) from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) . These codes are only for use in the SARIE payment service. The national code is not used by SWIFT.
SW national code	Swiss national central bank code (5-digits, Swiss Bank Code) from Swiss Interbank Clearing.
ZA national code	South Africa national central bank code (5-digits) of the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA).