The Indian Financial System Code (IFS Code or IFSC) is an alphanumeric code that facilitates electronic funds transfer in India. A code uniquely identifies each bank branch participating in the two main Payment and settlement systems in India: the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) systems.
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Format
The IFSC is an 11-character code with the first four alphabetic characters representing the bank name, and the last six characters (usually numeric, but can be alphabetic) representing the branch. The fifth character is 0 (zero) and reserved for future use. Bank IFS Code is used by the NEFT & RTGS systems to route the messages to the destination banks/branches. The format of the IFS Code is shown below.
Lists of IFS Codes
Bank-wise lists of IFS Codes are available with all the bank-branches participating in inter bank electronic funds transfer. A list of bank-branches participating in NEFT/RTGS and their IFS Code is available on the website of Reserve Bank of India. All the banks have also been advised to print the IFS code of the branch on cheques issued by branches to their customers.
The IFSC system is only for domestic transactions thus every bank branch in India irrespective of whether they are public sector, private sector or foreign banks will have an IFSC Code that acts as a unique identifier for the bank branch. In case of overseas remit systems, the international standard continues to be the SWIFT code, which is often not branch specific.
International Bank Account Number integration
Although the integration may be a complicated technical process for the financial institutions, it is expected that India will integrate the IBAN system by the end of 2016. More detailed description of the IBAN structure for the upcoming integration can be found on each bank's official website.