BIC / SWIFT Validation API

BIC code, also called a SWIFT code, is the standard identifier used by banks and financial institutions when transferring money between banks.

A BIC code consists of 8-11 alphanumeric characters and contains the bank code (4 letters), the country code (2 letters), the location code (2 characters) and the branch code (3 characters). Note, when the branch code is omitted or shown as “XXX”, the BIC code represents the bank’s head office.

For example, BIC code NATAAU33033:

• NATA - bank code
• AU - country code
• 33 - location code
• 033 - branch code

When you send money using an invalid BIC code, the bank should reverse the transaction and return the money, but this might take some time and your bank may charge you a fee. Using our flexible and fast RESTful API you can validate a BIC code and receive all possible information about it - see whether it's valid and which country, bank and branch it belongs to, as well as branch city, address and postcode.

How to validate a BIC code

To start using our BIC codes API sign up here and create your API key. Pass this key either via x-api-key HTTP header or via api_key query param.

To validate a BIC code call /v2/bic/{bic_code} endpoint using HTTP client of your preference, i.e.:

• cURL
• PHP
• Python
• Node
• JavaScript

curl 'https://api.fincodesapi.com/v2/bic/NATAAU33033' \
    --header 'X-Api-Key: your-api-key-here' \
    --header 'Accept: application/json'

# INSTALLATION
$ composer require guzzlehttp/guzzle

# REQUEST
<?php
require_once('vendor/autoload.php');

$client = new \GuzzleHttp\Client();

$response = $client->request('GET', 'https://api.fincodesapi.com/v2/bic/NATAAU33033', [
    'headers' => [
        'Accept' => 'application/json',
        'X-Api-Key' => 'your-api-key-here',
    ],
]);

echo $response->getBody();

# INSTALLATION
$ python -m pip install requests

# REQUEST
import requests

url = "https://api.fincodesapi.com/v2/bic/NATAAU33033"

headers = {
    "Accept": "application/json",
    "X-Api-Key": "your-api-key-here"
}

response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers)

print(response.text)

# INSTALLATION
$ npm install node-fetch --save

// REQUEST
import fetch from 'node-fetch';

const url = 'https://api.fincodesapi.com/v2/bic/NATAAU33033';
const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  headers: {
    'Accept': 'application/json',
    'X-Api-Key': 'your-api-key-here'
  }
};

fetch(url, options)
  .then(res => res.json())
  .then(json => console.log(json))
  .catch(err => console.error('error:' + err));

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  headers: {
    'Accept': 'application/json',
    'X-Api-Key': 'your-api-key-here'
  }
};

fetch('https://api.fincodesapi.com/v2/bic/NATAAU33033', options)
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then(response => console.log(response))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));

The response should be:

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "id": "NATAAU33033",
        "address": "500 BOURKE STREET, FLOOR 24",
        "postcode": "3000",
        "branch_name": "(HEAD OFFICE)",
        "branch_code": "033",
        "country": {
            "id": "AU",
            "name": "Australia"
        },
        "city": {
            "id": "3d2859b1-aa63-46dd-90d2-9ded52bbce22",
            "country_id": "AU",
            "name": "Melbourne"
        },
        "bank": {
            "id": "d7744803-1288-4955-9f53-05eb26bbef8e",
            "country_id": "AU",
            "code": "NATA",
            "name": "NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED"
        }
    }
}

You can find full documentation here.

Need to validate multiple types of bank details? Explore our Bank Account Validation API.