Overview

SWIFT has developed a distribution service of the BIC and BICPlusIBAN Directories through Web services. Directories Web services ease the integration of SWIFT Directories with customer applications and interfaces. This is done by providing tailor made queries and responses that can be used directly by software and applications, without any development for the end user.

Automated solution

SWIFT has developed off-the-shelf queries and responses that your application is able to use without manual intervention.

Easy integration with user's applications

Web services remove the integration burden for the user. To use the Web services, all that is required is a simple call to the service from within your software application.

Access to our latest data

Web services provide you with the most up-to-date data. 

• BIC: These services are based on the latest BIC data available in our back-office systems. This data is updated daily.
• BICPlusIBAN: In this product we link the national clearing codes with the BIC. Currently we receive this data, from the majority of our providers (including Banque de France), on a monthly basis. We only publish valid national codes from the latest file received from the provider.

Risk and cost reduction

Accessing your reference data is easy thanks to the query and response mechanism, which:

• reduces the cost for implementation
• reduces the risks linked to integration with other systems

Performance

Overall performance of Web services depends on application logic, network, and most importantly underlying messaging and transport protocols. There can always be performance and scalability problems. SWIFT makes sure the service is running and aims to provide sufficient throughput.