Ukraine switches to international IBAN standard to ease bank payments

National Bank of Ukraine has announced that starting with mid-January, bank customers can only make payments IBAN accounts.

The announcement marks the completion of the country’s transition to IBAN, which stands for International Bank Account Number, an internationally agreed system to ease cross-border payments. IBAN includes the country code of the account (for Ukraine: UA), a check digit, the customer’s bank code and the number of the account itself.

The National Bank of Ukraine began the transition to IBAN on 5 August 2019. By 1 November 2018, all the Ukrainian banks had fully completed the transition, but the deadline was prolonged until 12 January 2020 at the request of the State Treasury Service of Ukraine. A bank customer’s personal IBAN can be found on their printed bank statement or in their online banking portal. The maximum transfer amount under IBAN is EUR 50,000.

IBAN helps to reduce errors and delays in making international payments. The code can contain up to 34 alphanumerical characters. Ukraine’s IBAN will have 29 characters. According to iban.com, 76 countries globally use the IBAN standard.