IBAN and BIC

Questions and answers

What is an IBAN?

IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number. Its use has been mandatory in cross-border payments within the EU and the EEA as of 1 January 2007. Most of the European countries not belonging to the EU or EEA have also implemented the IBAN.

An account number in the IBAN format can be identified by the two-letter country code at the beginning of the number sequence. The length of the IBAN varies from country to country. The Finnish IBAN is 18 characters long and it always begins with the country code FI. In Finland the IBAN was implemented in domestic payments in 2008.

What is a BIC?

BIC stands for Business Identifier Code. The length of a BIC is always 8 or 11 characters. The first six characters are letters and the rest are letters and/or numbers.

You can deduce the beneficiary’s bank from the first four characters of a BIC and the bank’s country from the fifth and sixth character. For example: Nordea Bank Finland’s BIC is NDEAFIHH. You need the BIC when you want to make a payment. 

Nordea's BICsOpens new window

Where can I find IBANs and BICs?

You can find your IBAN on your account statement and under ‘Transactions and information’ in Netbank. If you are paying an invoice, you can usually find the IBAN and BIC on the invoice form. In other cases you need to ask them from the beneficiary.

Your own bank cannot give you the IBANs of other banks’ customers or other banks’ BICs.

Can I make a payment without the IBAN?

Payments to the EU and EEA countries cannot be made without the IBAN. It is the sending bank’s responsibility to reject the payments of its customers that do not have the required information. Payments sent from Nordea must always have the IBAN irrespective of the payment currency. This ensures that you will incur no extra costs if the payment is returned from abroad deducted with expenses and foreign exchange losses.

How should the IBAN and BIC be entered in payment details?

IBANs are always entered without spaces and without the word IBAN.

Which countries belong to the EU and the EEA?

SEPA - Single Euro Payments AreaOpens new window

Which countries use the IBAN?

List of countries that use IBANOpens new window.