IBAN discrimination

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Under IBAN discrimination (also called "SEPA discrimination" occasionally) is the rejection of an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) from the EU or any other country in the SEPA -space by a creditor or debtor.

Single European Payments Area

Traditionally, there have been different national direct debits and different business models for bank transfers in Europe , which have not been standardized. In the past, this usually required financial transactions to other EU countries to be processed manually. This involved a lot of time and money for the banks involved, which in turn passed them on to their customers. Regulation (EC) 924/2009 stipulates uniform processing procedures and maximum rates for interchange fees for international transfers across the EU in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) in order to be able to carry out fast and inexpensive financial transactions.

Ban on IBAN discrimination

Regulation (EU) 260/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of March 14, 2012 laying down the technical regulations and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euros regulates in Article 9 paragraph 2 that a payer who makes a transfer to a payee , who is the owner of a payment account within the Union, does not specify in which EU member state this payment account is to be kept, provided that the payment account can be reached. According to paragraph 2 of the aforementioned provision, the reverse also applies to a payee who accepts a transfer or uses a direct debit to collect amounts of money from a payer who has a payment account within the Union. However, this regulation is not subject to sanctions, so there is no penalty for infringement.

Forms of IBAN Discrimination

There are different forms of IBAN discrimination in practice, B. if the country code of the IBAN is already pre-printed on paper forms . In other cases, the software forces the entry of a specific IBAN. B. must have a prescribed length. Occasionally it also happens that companies still insist on the traditional bank code and account number and then carry out the conversion into an IBAN themselves, which makes it practically impossible to specify a foreign IBAN. It also happens that general terms and conditions exclude bank accounts abroad. According to the judgment of the European Court of Justice , the mere requirement that a customer must be domiciled in a certain Member State is equivalent to the requirement in which Member State a payment account is to be held and thus a violation of EU law.

Situation in individual countries

Germany

In the past few years there have been an increasing number of complaints about an existing IBAN discrimination practice. In addition to the competent bodies under the Injunctions Act , a new complaints office was therefore set up at the Competition Center in 2017 , which can help consumers in the event of IBAN discrimination. This complaints office reported, among other things, that when insurance companies were checked, IBAN discrimination was found in nine out of thirty cases.

France

In France , consumers traditionally pay by check , so direct debits and transfers are not very common. When French companies direct debits from customer accounts, they often insist on French bank details, often with the reason that they want to prevent fraud , money laundering or tax evasion .

Luxembourg

In 2015, the Luxembourg central bank drew attention to the problem of IBAN discrimination in a communiqué . The press has also repeatedly described this problem.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands it is reported that companies refused foreign bank accounts out of ignorance or ignorance.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 924/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 on cross-border payments in the Community and repealing Regulation (EC) No. 2560/2001. In: eur-lex.europa.eu. October 9, 2009, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Regulation (EU) No. 260/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of March 14, 2012 laying down the technical regulations and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euros and amending Regulation (EC) No. 924/2009. In: eur-lex.europa.eu. March 30, 2012, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  3. ^ Jan Gruber: Eurowings only wants German bank customers. Aviation Net, April 14, 2016, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  4. ^ Judgment of the Court of Justice (5th Chamber) of 5 September 2019 in Case C-28/18 Verein für Konsumenteninformation / Deutsche Bahn AG. Retrieved October 24, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Karsten Seibel: The IBAN promise is broken every day. WELT, April 29, 2017, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Competitions Center prevents companies from violating the SEPA regulation. Deutsche Bundesbank, June 30, 2017, accessed February 25, 2019 .
  7. ↑ IBAN discrimination: New complaints office at the competition center. BaFin, June 1, 2017, accessed on February 25, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Competition headquarters complains about "IBAN discrimination" in the insurance industry. Verlag CHBECK, June 26, 2017, accessed on February 25, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Vincent Mignot: Impôts, CAF, EDF, telecom: pourquoi votre compte bancaire est peut-être blacklisté. cBanque, March 29, 2018, accessed February 25, 2019 (French).
  10. ↑ Single Euro Payments Area: BCL criticizes IBAN discrimination. Luxemburger Wort, March 17, 2015, accessed on February 25, 2019 .
  11. ↑ IBAN discriminatie, een toelichting op een great problem. Geldburger, May 18, 2018, accessed February 25, 2019 (Dutch).
  12. ↑ IBAN uit other countries is not overal geaccepteerd. Banken.nl, July 15, 2014, accessed on February 25, 2019 (Dutch).