International Bank Account Number
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The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an international standard for numbering bank accounts. It was originally adopted by the European Committee for Bank Standardisation, and was later adopted as ISO 13616:1997. The IBAN consists of a two letter ISO 3166-1 country code, followed by two check digits, and up to thirty alphanumeric characters for the domestic bank account number, called the BBAN (Basic Bank Account Number). It is up to each country's national banking community to decide on the length of the BBAN for accounts in that country, but its length must be fixed for any given country. A unique identifying code for the bank, of a fixed length and at a fixed position, is required to be contained in the BBAN. However, it is left up to the national banking communities to determine its length and position within the BBAN, so long as it is constant for each country.
When stored electronically, the IBAN is not to be broken up by spaces; but when printed on paper, it is to be expressed in groups of four characters, with the last group of variable length.
The IBAN was developed to help improve the payments system within the European Union. Customers, especially individuals and SMEs, are frequently confused by differing national standards for bank account numbers. While the system is capable of being used for routing purposes, it cannot at present be used to do so since the IBAN has not been widely adopted outside of Europe, and the ECBS expects that the process of adoption may take five to ten years. Until then, it is necessary to continue to use the current ISO 9362 Bank Identifier Code or BIC system in conjunction with the IBAN in order to ensure proper routing.
Examples
- Belgian IBAN format: BEkk CCCC CCCC CCCC
- The last 12 digits represent the bank and account number.
- Danish IBAN format: DKkk CCCC CCCC CCCC CC
- The last 14 digits represent the bank and account number.
- French IBAN format: FRkk BBBB BGGG GGCC CCCC CCCC CKK
- German IBAN format: DEkk BBBB BBBB CCCC CCCC CC
- The first two 4-digit pairs represent a bank and the last 10 digits an account.
- Irish IBAN format: IEkk AAAA BBBB BBCC CCCC CC
- The first 4 alphanumeric characters are the start of the SWIFT code. Then a 6 digit long routing code and an 8 digit account code follow, both numeric.
- Italian IBAN format: ITkk BBBB BBBB BBBX XXXX XXXX XXX
- The first 11 alphanumeric characters represent the bank, the last 12 digits the account.
- Dutch IBAN format: NLkk BBBB CCCC CCCC CC
- The first 4 alphanumeric characters represent a bank and the last 10 digits an account.
- Polish IBAN format: PLkk BBBB BBBB MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM
- The first 8 digits are the bank-branch code and the last 16 are the account number. Within the bank-branch code, the first 3 or 4 digits represent the bank, the next 4 or 3 - the branch, and the last one is the check digit.
- Romanian IBAN format: ROkk BBBB CCCC CCCC CCCC CCCC
- The first 4 alphanumeric characters represent a bank, the last 16 represent the specific bank branch and an account, combined any way the bank decides (typically the first 4 among the 16 identify the branch); some banks include the ISO 4217 currency identifier somewhere in the account name.
- The four character bank designation is alphabetical, the next six characters are a sort code (often a specific branch) and the remaining characters are the customer account number.
See also
External links
- ECBS IBAN page (http://www.ecbs.org/iban/iban.htm)
- ECBS IBAN standard v. 3.2 (http://www.ecbs.org/Download/EBS204_V3.2.PDF)
- A free IBAN calculator and validator (http://www.iban-rechner.de/) (in German)de:International Bank Account Number