The Indian Financial System Code (IFS CodeorIFSC) is an alphanumeric code that facilitates electronic funds transfer in India. A code uniquely identifies each bank branch participating in the three main Payment and settlement systems in India: the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) systems.[1]
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.[2] The format of the IFS Code is shown below.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank Code | 0 | Branch Code | ||||||||
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 the Reserve Bank of India.[3] All the banks have also been advised to print the IFS code of the branch on cheques issued by branches to their customers.