BIC stands for business identifier code. BIC is an international standard for identification of institutions within the financial services industry.

BICs are used in automated processing. They unambiguously identify a financial institution or a non-financial institution. The ISO 9362 standard specifies the elements and the structure of a BIC. A BIC consists of either 8 or 11 contiguous characters. These characters comprise either the first three, or all four, of the following components: party prefix, country code, party suffix, and branch identifier. The International Organization for Standardization has designated Swift as the BIC Registration Authority.

An 11-character BIC (optional element attached to 8-character BIC) that comprises the following components: party prefix, country code, party suffix, and branch identifier.

A BIC that comprises the following components: party prefix, country code, and party suffix.

See also business party identifier.