IBAN - International Bank Account Number
IBAN - International Bank Account Number
IBAN is a bank account represented in accordance with an international standard. The use of IBAN accounts reduces the likelihood of indicating the incorrect account number and delivery time of funds to the beneficiary’s account.
IBAN was originally developed by the European Committee for Banking Standards, and later was recognized as ISO 13616:1997 by the International Organization for Standardization and currently is regulated in accordance with ISO 13616-1:2007.
According to ISO 13616-2: 2007, IBAN account formats are registered by the International Interbank Financial Telecommunications Association (SWIFT).
The IBAN account was originally created to facilitate payments in the EU, but its form is so flexible that it is now used almost all over the world. In the EU, IBAN is one of the basic conditions for the automatic processing of international payment data.
IBAN accounts use country codes pursuant to ISO 3166-1 standard, which consists of two letter characters.
IBAN accounts’ control keys are calculated according to the ISO/IEC 7064 (MOD 97-10) standard and represent a number (two-digit) calculated according to all other characters.
The number of IBAN account characters should not exceed 34. The number of characters varies by country, although all accounts in the country must have the same number of characters.
IBAN in Georgia
In 2009, the National Bank of Georgia started to work on the standardization of account numbers in banking sector. Having studied the existing situation, the National Bank of Georgia, together with the commercial banks and with the support of the Association of Georgian Banks, decided to introduce unified international bank account numbers (IBAN). Correspondingly, a memorandum was signed between the NBG and the commercial banks, according to which, from May 3, 2010, the banks began to open accounts in the IBAN format. The use of IBAN accounts has become mandatory in Georgia since January 1, 2013.
IBAN accounts are represented throughout Georgia by 22 characters.
An example of the format of the IBAN account number of the National Bank of Georgia:
GE – country code (2 symbols);
29 – Check Digits - control key (two-digit number) calculated based on all other symbols and their combinations.
NB – Bank code defined by NBG
0000000101904917 – account identifier to be set by the Bank (16 digits)