S.W.I.F.T

Society For Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or in short SWIFT is a private international telecommunication network which was established in Belgium in early 1970s and became operational on May 9, 1977. SWIFT however, is not a financial institution but provides telecommunication service for transmission of financial and non-financial messages to all member banks worldwide. SWIFT is solely a transporter of messages. It does not hold funds nor does it manage accounts on behalf of customers, nor does it store financial information on an on-going basis.

As a message transporter, SWIFT transports messages between two financial institutions. This activity involves the secure exchange of proprietary data while ensuring its confidentiality and integrity.By introducing IPSec-based security, a suite of protocols for securing Internet Protocols (IP) communications, SWIFT continues to maintain its leadership in providing the most secure financial messaging services.

Interested e-commerce community who wish to get connected with SWIFT may subscribe to their direct connectivity facility using SWIFTNet services. Before subscribing, it is advisable to access to web hosting articles to find out more information on various ranges of software and security features available in the market.

Web hosting articles provide good source of information for the public, particularly e-commerce community in obtaining a holistic understanding on how the electronic medium works in message transmission while at the same time maintaining the security that is the most important feature.

Every bank that subscribes to SWIFT is assigned with a Bank Identifier Code or BIC which is a unique code to identify each different bank. For example, RHB Bank, one of the anchor banks in Malaysia and a member of SWIFT is identified with the BIC, RHBBMYKL. When SWIFT sends any message to this BIC, it will reach RHB Bank head office in Malaysia. It works on a basic concept similar to an email address or domain name as explained in many web hosting articles over the internet. There are two types of BIC, 8 character BIC or known as "BIC8" and 11 character BIC which is known as "BIC11". A BIC8 identifies a financial institution in a country or a location whereas BIC11 identifies the financial institution’s branch.

Messages sent through SWIFT are formatted according to message type, for example, MT100, MT700, MT202, MT799 and so on. The format is arranged using a specific alpha numeric code to identify data like name of beneficiary, name of a bank, location, amount, sender and other related information. This will enhance the processing of different type of messages by member banks before transmitting them to their respective branches.