“BIC” is the abbreviation for Business Identifier Code.
The BIC is an alphanumeric code through which payment service providers can be uniquely identified. The BIC has eight or eleven digits. The first four digits can be freely selected by the payment service provider and often contain an abbreviation of the payment service provider’s name. The next two digits contain a country code (e.g. DE for Germany). This is followed by two digits with a location code (e.g. BE for Berlin). After this, there is an option to include three digits to specify a branch or department.
Since 2016, the BIC no longer has to be provided for payments in euro within the EU.