Payments
Add and validate a beneficiary (BIC & IBAN)
How the portal checks an IBAN and decodes a BIC before you ever send money to a new account.
What an IBAN and a BIC are
An IBAN (International Bank Account Number, ISO 13616) identifies a specific account: country code, two check digits, then the domestic bank and account number. A BIC (Bank Identifier Code, ISO 9362) identifies the bank itself — 8 or 11 characters giving the institution, country, location and optional branch. A cross-border payment usually needs both.
How validation works here
When you add a beneficiary, the portal validates the IBAN's mod-97 check digit (ISO 7064) locally, then calls a bank directory to resolve the IBAN or BIC to the real bank behind it. The BIC is decoded to bank, country and location so you can confirm you are paying the institution you intend to. If a field is malformed, you are told before you can save it.
- IBAN check digit fails -> the account number or country prefix is wrong; re-key it from the source document.
- BIC will not decode -> it is not a valid 8/11-character code; ask the beneficiary for the correct SWIFT code.
- Bank resolves to a different name than you expect -> stop and confirm with the beneficiary directly.
Good practice
Always take beneficiary bank details from an invoice or a signed instruction, never from an email alone. Confirm any change of bank details with a known phone number — invoice-redirection fraud relies on you not making that call.
Still need help? Raise an enquiry and our service desk picks it up — you get a tracked ticket reference and a response-time target. Raise an enquiry
About this guide
- Topic
- Making payments
- Reading time
- 3 min
- Views
- 2,981
- Found helpful
- 96% (159/166)
- Updated
- 02 Jul 2026