What is IBAN ?
IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number. Since the introduction of the European Union and the Euro currency, IBAN is required when sending payments to banks in the European Union.
To ensure your payment is processed fast and efficient the IBAN and BIC (Bank Identification Code) are required, and extra cost maybe incurred after January 1st 2007 if they are missing.
The IBAN is a combination of numbers and letters, which starts with 2 letters identifying the country where the account is held. The format differs per country. Some examples:
Netherlands:
NL44 RABO 0123 4567 89
NL69 PSTB 0001 2345 67
NL91 ABNA 0417 1643 00
Belgium:
BE62 5100 0754 7061
Germany:
DE89 3704 0044 0532 0130 00
For which type of payments is it required ?
The IBAN is required when payments are sent to accounts held with banks in the European Union.
Why the use of the IBAN ?
The use of the IBAN enables the automatic processing of payments by European banks and therefore speeds up the processing of the funds to the beneficiary account.
Where can I find the IBAN ?
The beneficiary recipient must provide his IBAN to the ordering customer. This IBAN can be found on the statement of the beneficiary recipient. By law companies must also print their IBAN on the invoices they issue.
Other requirements for completing the Payment Instruction
Together with the IBAN, the BIC of the beneficiary bank is also required. BIC stands for Bank Identification Code, which is also known as the Swift code. Examples of BIC codes of some banks in Holland are:
Rabo Bank: RABONL2U
Post Bank: PSTBNL21
ABNAMRO: ABNANL2A
ING Bank: INGBNL2A
Inquiries & other information
If you don?t know the beneficiary?s IBAN or the BIC of the Beneficiary?s Bank, the beneficiary must provide you with this information. If you need to find the BIC code of a bank, you can do so by going to the following link on the internet, click then on search and filling in the name and country where the bank is located. The link is: http://www.swift.com/biconline/index.cfm
You may visit http://www.ibannl.org/frame.html for more information on IBAN numbers in Holland.
Otherwise you can also give us a call for assistance at 4661320, or via email at Ruthmila.benito@mcb-bank.com.
