IBAN (International Bank Account Number)
An IBAN is the standardised format for identifying a bank account across borders, encoding the country, bank, and account number in a single string. It is what a counterparty uses to send you a SEPA or SWIFT payment, and its country prefix reveals where the account is held.
The country code in your IBAN can quietly cost you business, because some customers and platforms reject non-local IBANs even where doing so is unlawful under SEPA rules. A local-looking IBAN in your customers’ market can lift payment acceptance by a meaningful margin over an offshore prefix.
IBAN discrimination is a business rejecting a payment or direct debit because the customer’s IBAN is from a different SEPA country than expected.
SWIFT is the global messaging network banks use to instruct cross-border wire transfers; SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is the EU scheme for standardized euro transfers between member-state banks, typically same-day or next-day.
A multi-currency account holds and transacts in several currencies from a single account, letting a business receive, hold, and pay out in each without a forced conversion on every transaction.
An Electronic Money Institution is a regulated entity, licensed separately from a bank, authorized to issue e-money and provide payment accounts and services.