Sri Lanka Bank Branch Code & SWIFT Finder

Sri Lanka has two payment-routing identifier systems that everyone eventually trips over: a domestic 7-digit SLIPS routing key and the international SWIFT BIC. They look similar, sit on adjacent lines on most bank documents, and are wrong in different situations. This tool resolves both — by bank+branch, or in reverse from any of the codes printed on a cheque, payslip, or remittance instruction.

The 4-digit LankaPay bank code. Every licensed bank in Sri Lanka has a 4-digit code allocated by LankaPay (the national payment-network operator, regulated by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka). Codes always start with the digit 7 — Bank of Ceylon is 7010, Commercial Bank is 7056, People's Bank is 7083, Hatton National Bank is 7135, Sampath Bank is 7278, and so on. These codes are stable — they have not changed since the modern LankaPay registry was published.

The 3-digit branch code. Each bank allocates a 3-digit branch code for every branch it opens, in roughly opening order. The Head Office is usually 001 or 002depending on the bank. So Commercial Bank's Nugegoda branch is 080, BoC's Head Office is 002, and Sampath's Pettah is 010. Branch codes are not unique across banks — branch 080 exists at multiple banks for entirely different branches, which is why decoding a 3-digit input often returns several matches.

The 7-digit SLIPS routing. The full domestic routing key is the bank code + branch code concatenated, always exactly 7 characters: 7056080 = Commercial Bank Nugegoda. This is the value used by SLIPS (the bulk clearing rail for salary credits, EPF Form C, supplier batches) and CEFTS (the real-time rail behind internet-banking instant transfers). On a printed cheque, the MICR line at the bottom uses the same 7-digit key.

The SWIFT BIC. The international Bank Identifier Code is governed by ISO 9362. Sri Lankan bank head-office BICs are all 8 characters in the form XXXXLKLX — for example CCEYLKLX for Commercial Bank, BCEYLKLX for Bank of Ceylon. The 4 letters are the bank, LK is the country, and LX is the location code (Colombo head office). Some banks publish 11-character per-branch BICs (head BIC + 3-character branch suffix), but for inward remittances the 8-character form plus the branch address is the standard convention. Sri Lanka does not use IBAN, so remittance forms expecting an IBAN should be filled with the SWIFT BIC and the account number separately.

How decoding works. The tool inspects the input after stripping spaces and uppercasing. Length and shape determine the lookup: 3 digits → branch code (multi-bank); 4 digits → bank code; 7 digits → split slice(0,4) + slice(4,7); 8 letters/digits in the XXXXLKxx shape → primary BIC; 11 chars → head BIC + 3-char branch suffix. When the input is a per-branch BIC the tool first checks any published swift11 values, then falls back to matching the 3-digit branch code suffix.

12 licensed banks (Licensed Commercial Banks and Licensed Specialised Banks under CBSL regulation), each with the canonical LankaPay code and primary head-office SWIFT BIC.

Branch-level data covers all 25 districts. For a branch not in this curated subset, use the official LankaPay Member Bank Locator (link below) — every bank's code is canonical and stable, so even an unbundled branch starts with the bank codes shown above.

• LankaPay — Member Bank Locator (canonical SLIPS / CEFTS routing registry)
• Central Bank of Sri Lanka — Licensed Commercial and Specialised Banks
• LankaPay Network (national payment-network operator)
• ISO 9362 — Banking telecommunication messages — Business identifier code (SWIFT BIC)

Bank codes, branch codes, and primary SWIFT BICs were reconciled against LankaPay and the named bank's published directory on 2026-05-16. 12 licensed banks and 193 branches are currently bundled, covering all 25 districts and all 9 provinces.