IBAN discrimination: What is it and how to act if it happens to me?

30/04/2025

If you have a euro payment account opened with a bank, payment institution or electronic money institution in the European Union, you can receive or make payments and direct debit receipts to any other EU account, regardless of the country where the institution is located and the IBAN that identifies it.

As we have already explainedAbre en ventana nueva, the IBAN is an alphanumeric code that identifies payment accounts with a unique combination of numbers and letters. The first two digits identify the country of residence of the entity offering the account. For example, in Spain the IBAN starts with the letters ES, followed by 22 numbers. In other countries, it can be up to 34 digits.

Sometimes a company, professional or public administration in an EU country has refused to receive payments or direct debits from an account whose IBAN does not correspond to that in their country.

This practice is a regular source of complaints, is illegal and contravenes Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012.Abre en ventana nueva

What can I do if my IBAN is being discriminated against?

You can take the following steps:

1. Inform them that they are required to accept payment accounts with IBAN from any EU country.
2. Send a formal complaint to the alleged infringer.
3. If you do not receive a response or it is not satisfactory, you can report the alleged violation to the appropriate competent authority.

Which competent authority can I complain to?

In cases where the alleged infringer is a Payment Service Provider (PSP), such as a bank or payment institution, or the discrimination of IBAN arises in the relationship between two companies, entrepreneurs or professionals acting on the basis of their commercial or professional activities and who are not payment service providers, the competent authority is the Banco de España. You can contact us at:

1. E-mail: paymentsystems@bde.es
2. WebsiteAbre en ventana nueva

In cases where the alleged infringer is a business and the injured party a consumer, the competent authorities are the consumer authorities of the Autonomous Communities.

The full list of bodies responsible for ensuring compliance with the SEPA Regulation is available on the European Commission's websiteAbre en ventana nueva

Conclusion: If you have been unable to make or receive a transfer or have been unable to pay by direct debit from your EU-issued IBAN account number, you can lodge a complaint with the competent authority.

“Disclaimer: Please note that this is a translation of the original in Spanish that has been obtained using eTranslation (the machine translation tool provided by the European Commission), with the intention of giving you a basic idea of the content in English until a human translation becomes available. The Banco de España accepts no liability whatsoever in connection with this translation.”