also called SWIFT code · BIC · SWIFT/BIC
A code identifying a specific bank for international wire transfers.
A SWIFT code is the tag that identifies which bank a payment is going to when money crosses borders by wire. It is not the same as an IBAN, which pinpoints the specific account; SWIFT names the bank, the IBAN names the account inside it. These wires can crawl and lose money to middleman banks along the route, which is exactly why app-based services have won people over.
You send a SWIFT wire to move your own savings to an account in another country. It takes several days, and when it lands, an intermediary bank you never chose has skimmed a fee off the top, so less arrives than you sent.
SWIFT wires can be slow and costly with intermediary bank fees, which is why fintechs are popular alternatives.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
These are the networks a payment can travel on, which differ in speed and cost.
SWIFT is the international messaging system behind cross-border wires, a wire transfer is a direct bank-to-bank payment that moves individually, and SEPA is the cheap euro-area system.
ACH is the US batch system for everyday transfers, a local payment rail is any country's own fast domestic system such as ACH, Faster Payments or SEPA, and an intermediary bank is a middle bank that relays an international transfer when the two banks have no direct link.
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