How does an International Wire Transfer Work?

What is a Wire Transfer?

A wire transfer is a method of transferring money from one bank to another through electronic means. The money will be transferred from one account to another digitally through an electronic medium. You can use wire transfer to transfer money from one bank to another with in your country or internationally.

How does an International Wire Transfer Work

A wire transfer is a transaction between 4 parties; the sender, remitting bank, receiver’s bank and the recipient.

When sender requests remitting bank to execute a wire transfer, the bank will initiate the funds transfer with special set of instructions containing all the required details. These instructions are sent by telex or by an inter-bank telecommunication system known as S.W.I.F.T.

Upon receiving the instructions, receiving bank verifies the recipient information and will transfer the funds to recipient’s bank account.

Normally, the whole wire transfer process is completed in 2-4 working days.

Information Required for an International Wire Transfer

It should be noted that for an efficient wire transfer, the following information are required:

Sender Information – Name, address and account number from which the fund transfer is carried out.

Recipient Information – Name, Address & Bank Account Number

Recipient Bank Details – Branch Name & Address.

Routing Codes – SWIFT - Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a company which provides a secure financial messaging service. SWIFT exchanges the information regarding wire transfer between related banks or financial institutions.SWIFT identification codes are assigned to banks for easy and error free communication.

BIC – Bank Identification Code. BIC helps them to get recognized by country, region and organization. All banks which are member of SWIFT have a BIC.

IBAN: International Bank Account Number or IBAN is given to all banks which have joined European Union.

Next time, when you do a wire transfer do not forget to include all the information! Otherwise, you funds may end up in the wire for a very long time.