Introduction

Welcome! This reference page will list all SWIFT APIs and the detailed documentations pertained to each. Our APIs implement REST with standard HTTP codes, verbs and authentication.

There are two types of SWIFT APIs, one accessible over the internet, and the other accessible only over the secure SWIFT network. The base URL is different for each type. Additionally, we offer a sandbox environment for developers to test out the APIs early, without any provisioning and over the internet.

Authentication

There are three types of authentication methods used by SWIFT APIs, HTTP basic authentication, a token based authentication (OAuth) and authentication with gpi connector. Gpi connector is a software required to use for API calls and it is protected with SWIFT LAU (Local Authentication) in the HTTP headers.

Please see our overview of OAuth and the OAuth Token API specifications.

Versions

SWIFT uses semantic versioning for our APIs. We will bump up the MAJOR version when a "breaking change" is made to the API, MINOR version number will be incremented when a functional "non-breaking change" is made to the API and "PATCH" version number will be incremented when a bug fix "non-breaking change" is made to the API.

We adopted the URI versioning approach where MAJOR version number is expected to be in the URL.

Errors

SWIFT uses industry best practices to handle errors. You can expect three outcomes when interacting with our APIs. HTTP status code 2XX indicates success, 4XX indicates an error due to information provided by the client application, 5XX indicates an error with the server.

Pagination

When making an API call to a resource like /payments/changed/transactions, the number of results returned can be very large. To make results easier to handle and to reduce latency and the amount of bandwidth consumed, results are paginated.

There are two pagination behaviors supported by SWIFT APIs. GPI APIs support maximum_number and next query parameters. If there are more resource objects to be fetched than permitted by maximum_number, a next token is returned to fetch the next set of resource objects. Other SWIFT APIs support limit and offset query parameters. If there are more resource objects to be fetched than permitted by limit, a next key is returned whose value is a subpath to be used in the subsequent request. Additional keys are also returned such as self, previous, first, last and pageof.

SDK

Build your application with SWIFT SDK to make coding easier. SWIFT SDK takes care of the lower-level plumbing including authentication, authorization, signing and error handling. In addition, it provides a number of value-added services such as schema validation, monitoring, end-to-end testing and ready to use API use cases. SWIFT SDK currently supports APIs for accessing customer credit transfer, instant payments, stop and recall, case resolution, cover payments, financial institution transfer, gpi for corporates, pay and trace, inbound payments, pre-validation, KYC Registry, SWIFTRef and SWIFTRef Automated Download services.

Microgateway

Use SWIFT Microgateway to benefit from the full range of API-based services available on SWIFT. SWIFT Microgateway is a software product that allows firms to configure, manage, and monitor all API calls they make on the platform. In the future, the Microgateway will enable you to expose your own APIs on SWIFT, allowing you to offer your services to our unique community of more than 11,000 financial institutions located in over 200 countries.

Sandbox

GPI

Overview

Access to highly confidential GPI data requires API client to estabilish a secure session with the API service via the following options: SWIFT SDK and SWIFT Microgateway for API v4 or higher, gpi Connector for API v3 or lower.

Compliance

Overview

APIs in this category use token based authentication (OAuth). Access token is obtained from the OAuth API. See OAuth guide and OAuth API documentation.

RefData

Overview

Reference Data APIs use basic authentication.

Business Intelligence

Notification Service