Westpac SWIFT Codes in New Zealand

What can you use these codes for?

SWIFT codes are an absolutely wonderful creation. The SWIFT organisation is the current body which is responsible for the maintenance and security of the international secure financial messaging service – they’re official known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication – pretty good acronym if you ask us!

SWIFT’s mission statement is as follows:

SWIFT is a worldwide community of financial institutions whose purpose is to be the leader in communications solutions enabling interoperability between its members, their market infrastructures and their end-user communities

The system is governed under and international standard, specifically, ISO 9362:2014. It succeeded its predecessor, ISO 9362:2009, in 2014 as it’s name suggests. The reason for this update was to include non-financial institutions into the network – as the codes we’re previously known as BIC (bank identifier codes).

Now, there are more than 7,450 active codes connected to the network, with another 10,000 codes ready to go to be used in manual transactions.

As you can see from the table above, Westpac has two (2) codes you can choose from for the operations in New Zealand. Compared the five (5) codes they have available in Australia.

You may have also noticed there are two separate entities listed – Westpac Bank and WestpacTrust. It’s extremely important you choose the right one before entering the code into the transfer.

We speak of money transfers, but these codes can also be used to send secure messages between banks. As of February 2017, you’ll be surprised to know 61% of the total SWIFT code usage growth was attributed to sending messages instead of transferring funds.

However, money transfers still remains king – holding 53% of the total SWIFT code usage around the world. Unfortunately, we were unable to find specific numbers on New Zealand or Westpac.

Does it cost money to use SWIFT codes?

Absolutely not. If you’re simply transferring money into a Westpac account in New Zealand, there is no need to worry about paying any money to use the codes at all. They are freely available for you to use in the table above.

However, and you may or may not already know this, but it’s highly likely your bank will charge an international transfer fee instead.

These have nothing to do with using SWIFT codes individually, but rather the transfer as a whole.

How quickly do transfers using these codes complete?

There are a range of different factors which need to be taken into consideration when answering this question.

The first step is to try and find out how many intermediary banks the transfer will go through. This can add hours or even days to the transfer and extra fees as well.

Overall, however, international transfers, and for those with Westpac, should not take longer than 72 hours to be received. If it is taking longer, we recommend you call Westpac directly to discuss the issue.

Find all the branches in New Zealand for Westpac here.