International Bank Account Number

The International Bank Account Number, or IBAN, is a standardized way of writing a bank account number so that it can be recognized and validated no matter which country it comes from. Each IBAN combines a country code and check digits with the bank's own domestic account details into one fixed format, and the check digits let a receiving institution confirm the number was typed or transmitted correctly before a payment is sent, catching many transcription errors before a cross-border transfer is attempted. Adopted first by European banking standards bodies and formalized as the international standard ISO 13616 in 1997, IBAN is now required for transfers into most European countries and has spread to dozens of others, replacing a patchwork of incompatible domestic account formats with one internationally readable identifier.