OREANDA-NEWS. January 25, 2013. To improve identification of bank customers in e-payment environment, raise the level of automation when processing payments and eliminate sparseness in the structure of bank accounts, based upon the international practice, onward all bank accounts used in interbank settlements accross the country were transferred to a standard bank account number (IBAN) and started to be employed in a real time regime.

To note, IBAN is a standard bank account number established in accordance with ISO 13616 set by the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO). IBAN is currently utilized in 61 countries, including European countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Tunis, Kazakhstan and Georgia of the CIS countries.

The Central Bank took a decision to apply IBAN to financial institutions’ bank accounts on 17 June 2010. To ensure transition to IBAN, a Task Force was launched comprised of representatives from the Central Bank, leading commercial banks, the Banks Association and relevant public structures aided by approved Actions Plan. According to the Actions Plan, correspondent and sub-correspondent accounts opened for payment systems’ players were transferred to the IBAN structure from March, 2012 onward and started to be used in the real time regime.

The IBAN applied in the country is comprised of 28 symbols and has the following structure:

AZ NR BANK HHHH HHHH HHHH HHHH HHHH
where, AZ – the country code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (“AZ”).

NR – control numbers to verify authenticity of the account.

BANK – first 4 symbols of SWIFT BIC of a financial institution.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH – a customer account number.

For detailed information on IBAN please go to the offical web site of the Central Bank (www.cbar.az).