EEUURROOPPEEAANN CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEE FFOORR BBAANNKKIINNGG SSTTAANNDDAARRDDSS
IIBBAANN:: IINNTTEERRNNAATTIIOONNAALL BBAANNKK AACCCCOOUUNNTT NNUUMMBBEERR
EEBBSS220044 VV33..22 —— AAUUGGUUSSTT 22000033
Document history
EBS204 Version 1 November 1996
EBS204 Version 2 July 2000
EBS204 Version 3 February 2001
EBS204 Version 3.1 August 2002 (Changed made in Informative
Annex)
EBS204 Version 3.2 August 2003 (Updated references to ISO
1361:2003 minor revision)
© European Committee for Banking Standards. August 2003.
Avenue de Tervueren, 12, 1040, Brussels.
Not to be copied without attribution, and subject to the restriction under the confidentiality
clause below.
Comments or enquiries on the document may be addressed to the Secretary General at the
above address.
This European Banking Standard is Public, and may be copied or otherwise distributed provided the text is
not used directly as a source of profit.
TTAABBLLEE OOFF CCOONNTTEENNTTSS
FOREWORD ..........................................................................1
The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) ........................... 1
Design Background ............................................................ 1
Strategic Reason(s) ........................................................... 2
Potential ....................................................................... 2
Cross-Border Routing ......................................................... 3
1 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................5
2 SCOPE ..........................................................................5
3 NORMATIVE REFERENCES...................................................5
4 DEFINITIONS...................................................................6
4.1 Basic Bank Account Number (BBAN) .................................. 6
4.2 Capture of IBAN ......................................................... 6
4.3 Generation of IBAN ..................................................... 6
4.4 International Bank Account Number (IBAN) .......................... 6
4.5 Transfer of IBAN......................................................... 6
5 THE IBAN FORMAT...........................................................7
5.1 The electronic format.................................................. 7
5.2 The paper format....................................................... 7
5.3 Examples of IBANs ...................................................... 7
6 CALCULATION AND VALIDATION OF THE CHECK DIGITS ..............8
6.1 Method of validating the check digits ............................... 8
6.2 Method of calculating the check digits .............................. 8
6.3 Alpha to numeric conversion table ................................... 9
7 OPERATIONAL RULES & GUIDELINES.................................... 12
INFORMATIVE ANNEX ............................................................ 13
ECBS EBS204 V3.2 [August 2003]
Foreword — 1
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FFOORREEWWOORRDD
THE INTERNATIONAL BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER (IBAN)
The IBAN concept was developed by ECBS and by the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) and is an internationally agreed standard
ISO 13616: 2003.
It was created as a viable and practical international bank identifier, used
internationally to uniquely identify the account of a customer at a financial
institution, to assist error-free cross-border payments, and to improve the
potential for straight through processing1 (STP), with a minimum amount of
change within domestic schemes.
It was not specifically designed to facilitate the cross-border routing of
messages within a network.
DESIGN BACKGROUND
The IBAN was designed within the background of growing pressure to improve
the efficiency of cross-border payments in regard to cost, speed and quality.
Such improvements require, among other things, easier validation of foreign
account numbers. The IBAN design provides a standard method to enable the
cross-border account number formats to be recognised and validated.
In effect, the IBAN is additional information put on the front of the national
account number format2 of each country.
Validation is performed by check digits and a single, simple, algorithm. The
algorithm covers the whole IBAN, and ensures, for example, that individual
digits are not transposed.
Recognition is in two parts. The IBAN commences with the ISO 3166 twoletter
country code. It is therefore easy to recognise the country in which the
account is held. Within the national account identifier part of the IBAN, it is an
implicit requirement of the ISO standard that the bank be unambiguously
identified.
1 STP means processing a cross-border retail payment from debiting the ordering customer to
crediting the beneficiary customer automatically, i.e. without specific human attention or
manual intervention.
2 A single international format for the whole account number was an idea rapidly discarded as
infeasible and impractical.
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STRATEGIC REASON(S)
Customers, particularly private individuals and Small/Medium Sized Enterprises
(SMEs), are puzzled when receiving invoices from abroad. They are not familiar
with the different structures of bank/branch and account identifiers in different
countries. As a result the information they give on payment orders is, in many
cases, an incomplete or incorrect set of the data elements required for crossborder
STP. The subsequent correction is a major contributor to the significant
difference between the cost of cross-border payments and domestic payments,
and also leads to delays.
In contrast, the specification of bank and account identifiers on domestic
payment orders is close to 100% correct. Each individual country is effectively a
controlled environment where all of the parties involved in the payment process
know and follow the national standards and operational rules, as a result the
appropriate data elements are communicated.
The IBAN standard was created to solve the cross-border problem. When
implemented and used widely, IBAN will greatly enable the end-to-end STP of
cross-border transfers.
POTENTIAL
The IBAN is, first and foremost, an account identifier.
Its adoption is being driven within Europe, as it is supportive towards monetary
union and the preparation of a "Euro-domestic" payment system. The IBAN
contains all information needed to route a payment order through any national
clearing system (i.e., national bank code – also called clearing or sorting code –
and the account number itself). Thus the IBAN could, given clearing system
changes, be used to feed inbound foreign payments to the national clearing
system without any preceding table conversion – as is done today when the
beneficiary's bank is identified by the BIC3.
However, at the present time, there is only a very scant awareness of the ISO
standard worldwide. It will take considerable effort, and an essentially long
elapsed time4, before IBANs are used in a majority of worldwide cross-border
transactions.
It is therefore somewhat too early to consider IBAN as a cross-border routing
tool in the short-to medium term. But it is fruitful to think about the implications
of adopting the IBAN as a routing tool eventually, in order to create a long-term
3 The BIC (Bank Identifier Code), also known as the SWIFT code, identifies a bank, e.g.,
BANKBEBB, and is defined in ISO standard 9362.
4 A conservative estimate is between 5 and 10 years.
ECBS EBS204 V3.2 [August 2003]
Foreword — 3
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strategic plan.
CROSS-BORDER ROUTING
Banks want to avoid intermediaries in order to reduce the time taken in
processing commercial payments to a minimum. Consequently they wish to
address payment messages directly to the beneficiary's bank or, in the case of
mass payments, to a preferred correspondent bank in the country of the
beneficiary's bank.
The BIC code of the beneficiary’s bank will be required alongside the IBAN
because the IBAN cannot be used as a routing tool until:
- there is a wide-spread adoption of IBANs across the world;
- IBANs are validated on input of payment orders/credit transfers for
processing;
- the routing mechanisms are generally able to recognise and interpret
IBANs from all over the world.
The routing mechanisms will need to be able to interpret all IBANs to optimise
network routing. As a first, simple, stage they will need to recognise the country
code. At the second, more sophisticated, stage they will need to recognise the
bank identification within that country by understanding the various national
formats5.
The routing mechanism operating outside the destination country initially only
needs to recognise the destination country from the IBAN, in order to pass the
transaction cross-border. The ordering bank then has the choice of sending the
payment to their contractual partner in that country (mass payments), or sending
the payment direct to the beneficiary’s bank on establishing its identity within the
destination country (direct routing). Only the routing mechanism operating inside
the destination country needs to know the full construction of its own country's
BBAN. It also needs access to the authoritative and up-to-date version of its
own country's ‘sort code directory’ or equivalent.
5 Some national account number format(s) may need adaptation in order to achieve clear and
easy recognition of the account-holding bank. As defined in this standard this means for
each country, that the bank identification is:
- in a fixed position in the BBAN (Basic, or national, Bank Account Number
- has a fixed length
- is unique by bank.
For example, the UK and Netherlands have already prefaced their national account number
format with the first four letters of the BIC in order to give the clarity required by the
standard.
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Until IBAN can be used with confidence as a routing tool, it is essential to rely
on the BIC of the beneficiary’s bank as, for example, in S.W.I.F.T. FIN
messages. Therefore we have to accept a period while such BIC codes will run
alongside IBANs, and the inherent redundancy of the two overlapping concepts,
while IBAN adoption spreads across the world. For example, the International
Payment Instruction (IPI) described in ECBS document EBS206 supports the
combination of IBAN and BIC. We also have to accept that at some, probably
relatively distant, future point the banking community will have to convince and
request S.W.I.F.T. to make the BIC an optional field overriding the IBAN
rather than a mandatory field regardless of whether the account number is an
IBAN or not. (BICs may continue to be required by specific applications, even if
S.W.I.F.T. does not.)
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Introduction — 5
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11 IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN
This European Standard provides an international standard account identifier, the IBAN
(International Bank Account Number) for identifying an account held by a financial
institution, in order to facilitate automated processing of (cross-border) transactions
through:
- automatic processing of foreign bank account identifications;
- uniform validation of foreign bank account identifications;
- easy routing of transactions.
The IBAN can be implemented without modification to domestic account numbers or
account number formats. It achieves this by creating a standard prefix after which the
domestic account number can sit unchanged.
22 SSCCOOPPEE
2.1 This standard conforms in all respect with the IBAN specifications from ISO
13616 to which supplementary ECBS specifications are added. These supplementary
specifications are:
• alpha characters are in upper case;
• the IBAN is fixed in length, for each country code prefix;
• the bank identifier, as contained in the IBAN, is fixed in length and fixed in position,
for each country code prefix;
• a standard format is specified for the paper representation of IBAN.
2.2 The Standard describes methods of composing and validating IBANs in both
electronic and paper format.
2.3 Clause 7 incorporates some general operational rules, which are an inherent part
of this ECBS Standard, to be applied in all cases of conformance with the standard.
33 NNOORRMMAATTIIVVEE RREEFFEERREENNCCEESS
ISO 3166: Codes for the representation of countries
ISO 7064: Data processing - Check character systems
ISO 13616: Banking and related services - International Bank Account
Number (IBAN)
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44 DDEEFFIINNIITTIIOONNSS
4.1 BASIC BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER (BBAN)
The BBAN (Account Number) is the identifier used by financial institutions in
individual countries as part of a National Account Numbering Scheme(s) which
uniquely identifies an account of a customer at a financial institution.
4.2 CAPTURE OF IBAN
The process of converting an IBAN from paper to electronic format.
4.3 GENERATION OF IBAN
The one time process of creating an IBAN for an account.
4.4 INTERNATIONAL BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER (IBAN)
An expanded version of the Basic Bank Account Number (BBAN) used
internationally to uniquely identify the account of a customer at a financial
institution.
4.5 TRANSFER OF IBAN
Transport of the IBAN in an operational message
ECBS EBS204 V3.2 [August 2003]
The IBAN format — 7
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55 TTHHEE IIBBAANN FFOORRMMAATT
5.1 THE ELECTRONIC FORMAT
5.1.1 Up to 34 contiguous alphanumeric characters containing the following
consecutive components:
- country code : 2 letter country code as specified in ISO 3166, of the
country in which the bank/branch servicing the IBAN resides;
- check digits : 2 digits calculated as specified in clause 6;
- Basic Bank Account Number (BBAN): up to 30 alphanumeric
characters, 0-9, A-Z (only uppercase), no separators.
5.1.2 The BBAN has a fixed length per country.
5.1.3 The BBAN includes an explicit identification code of the bank/branch
servicing the account at fixed positions within the BBAN, specified per country.
5.2 THE PAPER FORMAT
The paper representation of the IBAN is the same as the electronic format
except that the IBAN shall be split up in groups of 4 characters separated by a
space. The last group shall be variable in length, up to 4 characters.
5.3 EXAMPLES OF IBANS
Country BE FR
Account number 510-0075470-61 20041 01005 0500013M026 06
Electronic IBAN BE62510007547061 FR1420041010050500013M02606
Paper IBAN BE62 5100 0754 7061 FR14 2004 1010 0505 0001 3M02 606
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66 CCAALLCCUULLAATTIIOONN AANNDD VVAALLIIDDAATTIIOONN OOFF TTHHEE CCHHEECCKK DDIIGGIITTSS
6.1 METHOD OF VALIDATING THE CHECK DIGITS
Preliminary step
If the IBAN is in paper format, convert to basic format by deleting all
non-alphanumeric characters.
BE62 5100 0754 7061 becomes BE62510007547061
Step 1
Move the first four characters of the IBAN to the right of the number.
Result = 510007547061BE62
Step 2
Convert the letters into numerics in accordance with the conversion table
under 6.3.
Result = 510007547061111462
Step 3
Apply MOD 97-10 (see ISO 7064). For the check digits to be correct,
the remainder after calculating the modulus 97 must be 1.
The remainder of the division of 510007547061111462 by 97 = 1
6.2 METHOD OF CALCULATING THE CHECK DIGITS
Preliminary step
Create an artificial IBAN composed of the country code (ISO 3166)
followed by “00” and the BBAN (without non-alphanumeric characters).
A Belgian BBAN 510-0075470-61 becomes BE00510007547061
Step 1
Move the first four characters of the IBAN to the right of the number.
Result = 510007547061BE00
Step 2
Convert the letters into numerics in accordance with the conversion table
ECBS EBS204 V3.2 [August 2003]
Calculation and validation of the check digits — 9
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under 6.3.
Result = 510007547061111400
Step 3
Apply MOD 97-10 (see ISO 7064).
Calculate the modulo 97 and subtract the remainder from 98. If the result
is one digit, then insert a leading zero.
98 - 36 = 62 so IBAN = BE62510007547061
6.3 ALPHA TO NUMERIC CONVERSION TABLE
A = 10 G = 16 M = 22 S = 28 Y = 34
B = 11 H = 17 N = 23 T = 29 Z = 35
C = 12 I = 18 O = 24 U = 30
D = 13 J = 19 P = 25 V = 31
E = 14 K = 20 Q = 26 W = 32
F = 15 L = 21 R = 27 X = 33
Note: Implementation note for modulo 97 calculations
For reasons of precision, the use of integers instead of floating point numbers is
recommended. If the number is too long for the software implementation of
integers (a (signed) integer of 32 bits or 64 bits represents a maximum of 9 or 18
digits), then the calculation can be split up into consecutive remainder
calculations on integers with a maximum length of 9 or 18 digits.
The remainder of the division of 510007547061111462 by 97 = 1
- Calculate the modulo 97 of the first 9 (or 18) digits of the number.
- modulo 97 of 510007547 = 74
- Construct the next integer of 9 (or 18) digits from the remainder,
followed by the next 7/8 (or 16/17) digits of the number. Calculate
the modulo 97.
- modulo 97 of 740611114 = 12
- Repeat step 2 until all the digits of the number have been
processed.
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- modulo 97 of 1262 = 1
ECBS EBS204 V3.2 [August 2003]
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77 OOPPEERRAATTIIOONNAALL RRUULLEESS && GGUUIIDDEELLIINNEESS
7.1 Generation of the IBAN shall be the exclusive responsibility of the bank/branch
servicing the account.
7.2 Every capturing system shall validate the IBAN i.e. when transferring the IBAN
from paper to electronic form.
7.3 The IBAN shall always be transferred completely to the next party in the
processing chain, at least until the entry-point in the country of the beneficiary.
ECBS EBS204 V3.2 [August 2003]
Informative annex — 13
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IINNFFOORRMMAATTIIVVEE AANNNNEEXX
It is strongly recommended that creditors use the IPI (International Payment Instruction –
EBS206) for communicating the IBAN, their bank’s BIC code and all other relevant data
for submitting credit transfer orders in a structured way to their debtors.
While creditors do not (yet) distribute IPIs they should indicate the IBAN as well as their
bank’s BIC on their letterheads and invoices, in the same way as they indicate data like
the account number, telephone number or Chamber of Commerce number.
Example:
Customer Inc.
12, Main Street (no need for explanation; just the data itself)
City, Country
Telephone : 0033 10 12 34 56 78
Chamber of Commerce : ABCDE12345678
Bank account number : 18206000103056966400117
Bank’s BIC : AGRIFRPP882
IBAN : FR76 1820 6000 1030 5696 6400 117
The use of a colon to separate the IBAN tag from the IBAN itself should exclude the risk
that the debtor would copy the IBAN tag as part of the IBAN account number.