The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an international standard (ISO 13616-1: 2007) for identifying bank accounts across national borders.
An IBAN is not a new account number, but simply a new format for an existing bank account number that will be recognized internationally. The IBAN facilitates the communication and processing of payment/remittance transactions while improving speed and accuracy. It will not only result in improving efficiencies in cross-border transactions including remittances sent by overseas Pakistanis but will also result in the facilitation of domestic electronic transfers.
An IBAN contains information relating to the country, the bank of the beneficiary as well as the account number itself. The formation of IBAN in MCB Bank in Pakistan is a composition of 24 alpha-numeric characters. An example of an IBAN is as under:
Example of Existing Bank Account Number: 0646609971000177
Example of IBAN Number: PK24 MUCB 0646 6099 7100 0177
| PK | 24 | MUCB | 0646609971000177 |
| Country Code (2 letters) | Check Digit (2 digits) | Bank Code (4 letters) | Account Number (16 digits) |
| International Envelope | Basic Bank Account Number (BBAN) | ||
| First two digits are Country Code Next two digits are Check Digits Next four digits are Bank Code (SWIFT BIC Code) Last 16 digits will be customer’s existing Account Number |