The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an internationally agreed means of identifying bank accounts across national borders with a reduced risk of propagating transcription errors. It was originally adopted by the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS), and later adopted as an international standard under ISO 13616:1997. The current standard is ISO 13616:2007, which indicates SWIFT as the formal registrar. Initially developed to facilitate payments within the European Union, it has now also been implemented by most European countries and many other countries, especially in the Middle East and in the Caribbean.
The IBAN consists of up to 34 alphanumeric characters: first the two-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, then two check digits, and finally a country-specific Basic Bank Account Number (BBAN). The check digits enable a sanity check of the bank account number to confirm its integrity even before submitting a transaction. The BBAN format is decided by each national banking community under the restriction that it must be of a fixed length of case-insensitive alphanumeric characters. It includes the domestic bank account number, branch identifier, and potential routing information.
Read more about International Bank Account Number: Background, Features, Adoption
Famous quotes containing the words bank, account and/or number:
“The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow sky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year’s seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)
“Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,
To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,
To nail his thought across the door,
Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,
To strike his living hi and ho....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)