CORPORATE & INSTITUTIONAL FAQS

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number. An IBAN includes all of the details needed by a receiving bank to apply a euro payment directly to a beneficiary's bank account without manual intervention.

The IBAN is now required as the primary euro account identifier for beneficiaries in Europe and payments not bearing an IBAN are subject to delay, additional charges and, in some cases, rejection.

In general the IBAN is comprised of the country code, two check digits and a national bank and account number. Each code should be represented electronically as continuous text but for ease of translation may often be shown on paper in blocks of four characters. Below are examples of how each country's format is worked and the number of characters that it must be comprised of:

Country Digits Example Andorra 24 digits AD1200012030200359100100 Austria 20 digits AT611904300234573201 Belgium 16 digits BE68539007547034 Cyprus 28 digits CY17002001280000001200527600 Czech Republic 24 digits CZ6508000000192000145399 Denmark 18 digits DK5000400440116243 Estonia 20 digits EE382200221020145685 Finland 18 digits FI2112345600000785 France 27 digits FR1420041010050500013M02606 Germany 22 digits DE89370400440532013000 Gibraltar 23 digits GI75NWBK000000007099453 Greece 27 digits GR1601101250000000012300695 Hungary 28 digits HU42117730161111101800000000 Iceland 26 digits IS140159260076545510730339 Ireland 22 digits IE29AIBK93115212345678 Italy 27 digits IT60X0542811101000000123456 Latvia 21 digits LV80BANK0000435195001 Lithuania 20 digits LT121000011101001000 Luxembourg 20 digits LU280019400644750000 Malta 31 digits MT84MALT011000012345MTLCAST001S Netherlands 18 digits NL91ABNA0417164300 Norway 15 digits NO9386011117947 Poland 28 digits PL27114020040000300201355387 Portugal 25 digits PT50000201231234567890154 Slovakia 24 digits SK3112000000198742637541 Slovenia 19 digits SI56191000000123438 Spain 24 digits ES8023100001180000012345 Sweden 24 digits SE3550000000054910000003 Switzerland 21 digits CH3900700115201849173 United Kingdom 22 digits GB29NWBK60161331926819

No. Currently, banks in the USA will not issue IBANs.  Thus, for your USD payments, traditional bank codes (such as ABA numbers) and account numbers will continue to be used. If this position were to change in the USA, Wachovia would advise all its customers accordingly.

At this stage, countries outside Europe have not adopted IBANs. Therefore an IBAN will not be required for payment messages originating from, or going to, non-European countries.

Any individual, company, bank or other institution, sending payments to the above countries in Europe, will be expected to quote the IBAN of the beneficiary in all euro payment instructions. Receivers of payments in the above countries in Europe should supply their IBAN to those making the payment.

If you are making euro payments into Europe you should ensure that you receive from your customers their IBAN and quote this in the account number field of your payment instructions to us. The IBAN may be contained on their invoice, or you may request it separately.

If you hold an account with Wachovia's London branch, we will already have assigned an IBAN for each account.  If you do not already know it, you may contact us and we will supply the IBAN to you. If you hold accounts with other banks in Europe, you can obtain your IBAN from them, and advise your remitters accordingly.

If you are a financial institution with a SWIFT Bank Identifier Code (BIC) anyone remitting to you may simply quote your BIC in their payment instructions. Alternatively, they may quote your IBAN as well as Wachovia London's BIC (PNBPGB2L).

If you are a financial institution with customers making euro payments into Europe, your customers should obtain details of the beneficiary's IBAN and quote that in their payment instructions to you. Please pass this to us, along with the BIC of the beneficiary's bank, if known. Failure to provide IBANs in payment instructions may result in additional charges from the beneficiary's bank or even rejection of payments.

The use of IBANs will help ensure that payments are sent and received quickly, efficiently, and with minimal cost. The inability to provide an IBAN may result in Wachovia being charged a penalty for repaired transmissions, which we may then pass on to our customers. Effective use of the IBAN will eliminate these penalty charges.

Yes. The IBAN is linked to the introduction of the Euro, since there is a requirement to reduce the costs involved in cross border payments within Europe, as part of the Single European Payment Area. The Euro is part of this, with new payment systems being developed, and the IBAN facilitates straight through processing, which, in turn, reduces end-to-end payment costs.

Although IBANs are not needed for payments in currencies other than Euro, it is common for banks to issue IBANs for accounts in other currencies and thus you may find that IBANs are being used more widely than just for euro transactions.

The actual IBAN is a multiple digit code that is constructed in four (or five) sections. The length and composition of IBANs will vary from country to country due to different domestic bank code and account numbering systems. The maximum number of characters for any IBAN, however, is 34.

* Some countries (such as France) have an additional one or two check digits usually after the customer account number

An example of an IBAN for a Wachovia Bank, N.A., London customer:

GB26PNBP16567101234567

An example of an IBAN for a customer of a French bank:

FR3912345123451234567890112

All customers holding accounts with Wachovia Bank, London are assigned an IBAN for each account.  If you do not already know your IBAN you may contact us through your Relationship Manager to obtain details.

If you hold accounts with other banks in Europe, they should be able to advise you of your IBAN, on request.