Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited SWIFT/BIC code

What SCBKCNBS means for a payment to Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited

Whether a recipient gives you SCBKCNBS or SCBKCNBSXXX, it is the same identifier for Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited in China. A SWIFT code tells every bank in the chain exactly which bank should receive the money. In practice you mostly see the code on international invoices, in your banking app and on the account details that Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited provides.

We wrote this page to help people who receives money at an account at Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited. Remember that the BIC only identifies the bank, not the person: the account number or IBAN takes care of that.

Verifying the SWIFT code of Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited

Have the recipient copy the bank details straight from their banking app. If the code you have differs from SCBKCNBS or SCBKCNBSXXX, do not guess – contact the recipient or Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited.

If the code is wrong, the transfer may get stuck, bounce back or cost extra, and tracing it can take weeks. An error in the account number can be a bigger problem, because the money may be credited to someone else.

Many banking apps validate the format of IBANs and sometimes look up the BIC automatically – that confirms the format, not the owner. If your bank offers it, a payee name check before sending gives extra certainty. For a first payment, many people send a small test amount before sending the rest.

Paying someone abroad from your Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited account

What you pay for an international transfer has several parts. On top of the transfer fee, correspondent or intermediary banks can deduct a fee, and if currencies are converted, the bank often applies a rate below the real market rate.

That exchange rate margin is often the biggest cost because it is hidden in the rate. Check the rate you are offered against the mid-market rate, the midpoint between buy and sell rates you see on financial sites. The difference is your real conversion cost.

Specialised transfer providers often offer rates closer to the mid-market rate. On GoldexPay you can compare the amount that arrives with different services. Choosing a specialist does not mean leaving Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited.

A note on our data

The details on this page are taken from public sources that we update regularly. It is possible that a code here is out of date, for example after a merger. The number of codes on this page reflect our own data, not official figures from Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited.

Treat our data as a starting point, not as the final word: the recipient’s bank details come first. GoldexPay is a comparison service and not affiliated with Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited. If you notice something that is out of date, we welcome a message.

Chinese Yuan (CNY) and conversion costs

The local currency in China is the Chinese Yuan (CNY). A payment in a foreign currency is converted into CNY on its way to Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited – and the bank that does it picks the rate. You rarely see a separate charge for the conversion.

Who converts the money makes a difference: every bank has its own margin. Transferring the money already in CNY usually prevents a second conversion by Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited.

The CNY rate changes constantly and quotes are often valid only for a short time. If you pay regularly, a slightly better rate make a real difference over time.

Incoming international payments to Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited

To receive an international payment at Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited, the person paying you has to have more than the BIC. What they need is: your name, account number or IBAN, SCBKCNBSXXX or SCBKCNBS and in many cases your home address.

Some banks also ask for the bank’s address in Shenzhen; it does no harm to include it. A typo in the IBAN can be harder to fix than you might think; copy them from your banking app rather than typing.

An incoming payment does not always land in full. Correspondent banks can take a fee and your own bank may charge for processing, and if the money is converted, a markup on the rate comes on top. Agree with the sender who covers the fees before the money is sent.

Changed bank details? Be careful

One of the most common tricks works like this: you receive a request claiming that a company has new bank details and that the next payment should go there. A valid SWIFT code says nothing about whether the request is genuine: scammers use real codes of real banks.

Before paying, confirm a change of bank details by phone on a number you know, not one from the message. Pressure and requests to keep it quiet tend to be red flags; a genuine business can wait for you to check. If a payment was sent to a fraudster, call your bank right away – speed improves the chance of getting it back.

People receiving money can be targeted as well: one known trick is a buyer who pays too much and then sends a request to refund the difference to another account. Do not act before the money is actually in your account – ask Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited if something looks wrong.

Tracking a transfer to or from Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited

How quickly a transfer arrives at Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited is determined by several factors: which currency you send, how many intermediary banks are involved, daily processing deadlines and differences in time zone. Weekends and public holidays in the sending or receiving country can add a day or more. Compliance checks by one of the banks can also add some delay.

When a payment takes longer than expected, ask the sending bank about the status and the transaction reference; with that reference banks can see where the payment is. Money transfer services usually show tracking online so you can see where the money is.

Only the sending bank is able to request a trace; the receiving side usually has nothing to trace yet. On the receiving end, it helps to check your statements to see a partial amount, since fees may have been deducted.

8 or 11 characters: SCBKCNBS versus SCBKCNBSXXX

A BIC is built from fixed blocks: characters one to four stand for the bank, characters five and six give the country and the two after that indicate the location. The result is SCBKCNBS for Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited.

XXX at the end of SCBKCNBSXXX is not a missing value or an error: it indicates the head office of Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited. Some forms insist on 11 characters, in which case you simply add XXX after SCBKCNBS.

In practice the code is written in capitals. Pasting the code is safer than retyping it: a typo can point to another bank.

Head office or branch code at Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited?

Shanghai Commercial Bank Limited uses 2 different SWIFT/BIC codes. Only one is the head office code; the rest belong to branches or departments.

For most incoming transfers, the head office code SCBKCNBSXXX is the right choice. A branch code only makes sense when the recipient’s bank specifically mentions it.

The safest approach is to take the code directly from the recipient’s bank details. Branch codes are sometimes changed or retired when banks reorganise.