ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

**International Bank Account Number**
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The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an international system for identifying bank accounts across national borders. It was originally adopted by the European Committee for Banking Standards, and later became an international standard under ISO 13616:1997 and currently ISO 13616:2007.

**History**
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The acquisition of the IBAN code was originally intended to facilitate payments within the European Union. However, its coordination was flexible enough to be applied globally. The official registration of IBAN under ISO 13616:2003 is Swift, and currently IBAN registration in Swift.

**Structure**
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The IBAN consists of an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, followed by two reference numbers and more than thirty alphanumeric characters for the local bank account number (including guidance information), called BBAN (Basic Bank Account Number). The length of the BBAN is determined by the national banking community in each country for accounts in that country, but it must be constant in any given country.

**Format**
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The IBAN should not contain spaces when sent electronically. It can be used for both national and international transactions between different current accounts, containing the identification of the country, bank, and current account number.

**Standards**
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IBAN is an international standard according to Standard # 13616 International Organisation for ISO and the European Bank Standard ECBS (European Committee for Banking Standards). It is based on the standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the European Committee for Banking Standards.