SWIFT Overview

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is an organization that provides an automated fast and safe means of sending and receiving financial messages between financial institutions worldwide.

SWIFT users include financial institutions such as banks, brokers, dealers, or investment managers. Typical users of SWIFT deal with payments, securities, foreign exchange, money markets, treasury, and trade. All SWIFT users are identified in the SWIFT network by a unique address called a Bank Identifier Code (BIC). To exchange messages over the SWIFT network, every user must have at least one unique BIC.

SWIFT processes information such as data, texts, or commands in the form of messages. SWIFT provides the following two applications which make all messaging functions and facilities available to users:
  • General Purpose Application (GPA)

    Controls how users communicate within SWIFT.

  • Financial Application (MT)

    Controls the user-to-user messaging facilities within SWIFT.