SWIFT was created by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, and for that reason it has this acronym, it is also known as BIC: Bank International Code. The purpose of a SWIFT or BIC code is to identify the banking institution using a unique universal code, which can be between 8 and 11 characters long. Be aware that financial institutions according to the segment or operation area may have more than one SWIFT or BIC code.
The BIC or SWIFT consists of 8 or 11 characters, and:
The bank code, defined in four unique characters
The country code, defined in two characters that make up the country's ISO code
The location code, defined in two characters in order to distinguish banks from the same country
The city code, defined in three optional characters that define the bank city.