IBANs

To make a European cross border payment, customers need to quote an IBAN and its associated Bank Identification Code (BIC). 

IBANs were introduced to help speed up international payments by standardising the identification of bank accounts.  There are some important points to be aware of:

• The IBAN is not a new account number.
• Your existing bank code and account number(s) will not be replaced.
• Additional characters will appear in front of your existing bank code and account numbers.

The IBAN is comprised of: 

The complete identifier, original bank code and account number, plus the additional characters. IBAN implementation has facilitated improvements in the quality of information exchanged between parties involved in European cross-border payments helping reduce errors and delays. 

The IBAN is calculated in such a way that it provides a guard against the accidental transposition of its characters/numbers and it can be checked or validated using our IBAN checker.  However its validation does not guarantee that the bank code or account number is correct, nor does it guarantee that the account actually exists, or is live.  

Officially an IBAN can only be issued for an account by the bank which services the account. The account owner is responsible for communicating their IBAN to their trading partner(s). It is unwise to take IBANs from any other source. It is also unwise to generate them from any source other than one provided by the account servicing bank. Other sources may be misinformed and give inaccurate or incorrect IBANs, and thus may cause delays in the payment process.

Further Information:
 

Background Information on IBANs
IBANs were introduced to help speed up international payments. Find out more about what they are and how they work here.  

Implementing IBANs
How IBANs are issued and who to contact for further information. 

IBAN in Europe
The countries issuing and receiving IBANs in Europe.  

IBAN Standards
Standards defining the structure and format of IBANs

IBAN Checker
Check the validity of an IBAN you have been given here.  

Bank Identification Code (BIC)
A universal method of identifying financial institutions.