International Bank Account Number IBAN

IBAN background information and implementation guide per country


1. General IBAN Information

What is an IBAN?

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number. It is the ISO 13616 international standard for numbering bank accounts. In 2006, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) designated SWIFT as the registration authority for ISO 13616.


Why is IBAN needed?

IBAN is the only beneficiary account identifier recognized and accepted by banks in the European Union and European Economic Area for wire payments in Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).


Use
The IBAN facilitates the communication and processing of cross-border and / or wire payment transactions. It allows exchanging account identification details in a machine-readable form.


2. The ISO 13616 IBAN Standard

Structure

The IBAN structure is defined in ISO 13616-1 and consists of:
2-letter ISO 3166-1 country code
2-check digits and up to 30 alphanumeric characters for a BBAN (Basic Bank Account Number) which has a fixed length per country and included within it, a bank identifier with a fixed position and a fixed length per country. The check digits are calculated based on the scheme defined in ISO/IEC 7064 (MOD97-10).

Terms and definitions

Bank Identifier: The identifier that uniquely identifies the financial institution and, when appropriate, the branch of that financial institution servicing an account in this registry, the branch identifier format is shown specifically, when present.

BBAN: basic bank account number: The identifier that uniquely identifies an individual account, at a specific financial institution, in a particular country. The BBAN includes a bank identifier of the financial institution servicing that account.

IBAN: international bank account number: The expanded version of the basic bank account number (BBAN), intended for use internationally. The IBAN uniquely identifies an individual account, at a specific financial institution, in a particular country.


ISO 13616 – Compliant IBAN Formats

This shows the IBAN format of each country that has implemented the IBAN standard. The countries are listed in alphabetical order.