People's Bank of China, The/Safe SWIFT/BIC code

What PBOCCNBJ means for a payment to People's Bank of China, The/Safe

PBOCCNBJ and PBOCCNBJXXX are two spellings of the same bank identifier, and both lead to People's Bank of China, The/Safe in Beijing. Banks worldwide use these codes to direct payments between countries to the correct institution. In daily life you usually come across the code on international invoices, in payment forms and on the account details that People's Bank of China, The/Safe provides.

Below we go through the practical side: money coming in from abroad, paying someone in another country and how to check the code before you hit send. Remember that the SWIFT code only identifies the bank, not the account: the account number or IBAN does that part.

Transfer times and tracking a payment to People's Bank of China, The/Safe

There is no fixed delivery time for international payments: some arrive the same day or the next, others take several business days. Payments made after the cut-off time or just before a weekend or public holiday usually go out a business day later. Sometimes a bank asks about the purpose of a payment, which can hold things up.

A growing number of banks use SWIFT gpi, which lets them follow a payment from bank to bank. Each payment gets a unique transaction reference, the UETR that banks can use to trace it. Save the payment confirmation until the money has arrived – you will need it for any trace request.

A missing payment is traced by the sending bank. As a recipient, it helps to check your account for a partial amount.

Sending money abroad from People's Bank of China, The/Safe

When you send money abroad via People's Bank of China, The/Safe, the fee you see is rarely all of the cost. Besides a fixed fee, banks in between may deduct a fee, and if the money changes currency, the bank usually applies a rate that is less favourable than the actual market rate.

Many banks rarely show the margin on the rate separately – you only notice it if you compare. Check the rate you are offered against the mid-market rate; the gap is what conversion costs you.

For a lot of currency pairs, a specialist provider is cheaper than a traditional bank transfer. GoldexPay compares what recipients receive across providers, which makes the cheapest option easy to spot. You can still use your account at People's Bank of China, The/Safe.

The Chinese Yuan and what conversion costs you

The national currency of China is the Chinese Yuan (CNY). When you pay another currency it has to be converted somewhere along the way – by your bank, by People's Bank of China, The/Safe or by a bank in between. Each conversion costs the amount.

Which bank converts the money makes a difference: every bank has its own margin. Transferring the money already in CNY usually prevents a second conversion.

Exchange rates change during the day, and some providers let you lock in a rate. On larger amounts, a small gap in the rate can be worth more than the fee.

How up to date is this code?

We collect bank codes from publicly available data and update our list from time to time. Institutions merge, change names and change codes, and a directory never catches every change immediately. Counts and locations are from our own dataset.

For any payment of any size, always check the code with People's Bank of China, The/Safe or the recipient. GoldexPay is not affiliated with People's Bank of China, The/Safe, we only compare transfer services. If you notice a mistake, we appreciate a message.

People's Bank of China, The/Safe: head office code versus branch codes

People's Bank of China, The/Safe uses 2 different SWIFT/BIC codes. Only one is the head office code, PBOCCNBJXXX; the rest identify branches or departments, and sometimes internal departments.

Usually you do not need to pick a branch: payments addressed to PBOCCNBJXXX reach People's Bank of China, The/Safe correctly. When you receive a specific code, stick to it rather than swapping it with the head office code.

Unsure which code to use? Ask the recipient, or look at a recent statement from People's Bank of China, The/Safe. Codes can change when banks reorganise.

Incoming international payments to People's Bank of China, The/Safe

If you are waiting for a payment from another country, give the sender all details at once. Share your name as the bank knows it, your account number or IBAN, the BIC PBOCCNBJXXX and your address.

You can include People's Bank of China, The/Safe and its city as well, because some payment forms have separate fields for them. Check each detail before you send them – a sender rarely spots a mistake in someone else’s details.

What lands in your account can be less than the amount sent. Correspondent banks can take a fee, and if the currency changes, an exchange rate margin comes on top. On invoices, it is common to state how the fees are split.

Verifying the SWIFT code of People's Bank of China, The/Safe

The safest source for a SWIFT code is the bank details provided by the recipient. Compare that code against PBOCCNBJ here and ask if anything does not match.

Mistakes in the SWIFT code are annoying rather than fatal: often the payment comes back, minus fees. An error in the IBAN or account number can be more serious, so check that just as carefully.

Many banking apps check the format of IBANs and sometimes look up the BIC automatically, but that does not prove the account belongs to the right person. Some banks now compare the name against the account before you confirm; take any warning seriously. A small test payment is a sensible step for a large first payment.

Scams that use SWIFT codes

Stay wary if someone suddenly wants you to pay into a different account. A valid SWIFT code says nothing about who owns the account: scammers use real codes of real banks.

Do not rely on contact details from the same email that announces the new account. Pressure or requests to keep it quiet tend to be warning signs. If a payment has already gone to the wrong account, contact your bank immediately: the sooner they act, the better the chance of a recall.

Scams can also work the other way: someone claims to have sent too much and asks you to refund the difference via a different route. Do not act before the money is actually in your account.

8 or 11 characters: PBOCCNBJ versus PBOCCNBJXXX

The structure of every SWIFT code never changes: a bank code of four letters, a two-letter country code and two for the location, plus an optional branch code. That gives you PBOCCNBJ for People's Bank of China, The/Safe.

XXX at the end of PBOCCNBJXXX does not stand for a placeholder or an error: it stands for the head office of People's Bank of China, The/Safe. Some banking apps ask for 11 characters, and then you can add XXX behind PBOCCNBJ.

As a rule the code is typed in capitals, without spaces or dashes. Look out for the letter O and the digit 0 and the letter I and the digit 1, a common source of typos.