I have not been charging for my iPhone applications so I have not had a need to setup my banking information until today that is. It looked pretty straight forward and I thought it would just be a matter of getting the right numbers. Well was I wrong. As some of the sales on iTunes comes from overseas Apple wants a SWIFT code for your bank. It turns out that my local Credit Union does not have a SWIFT code. I have transferred money overseas before and have always used a SWIFT code so I did not believe the first customer service agent who insisted that she was correct. A followup email at the local branch confirmed what the customer service agent had said, no SWIFT code.
I emailed Apple to find out if this was a required field and received a very prompt reply. The answer was yes the SWIFT code is required along with a short list of banks that they suggested I could use to open up a new account.
Tomorrow will be bank hunting day.