Glossary
Local IBAN
An IBAN whose country code matches the customer's market (DE for Germany, FR for France) - the practical answer to IBAN discrimination.
SEPA law says any EEA IBAN must be accepted, but employers, landlords and billers still reject "foreign" codes daily - IBAN discrimination. The fix is a provider that can issue IBANs with the local country code in each of your markets.
Few directories track this; Fintechnologica records the exact country codes each IBAN sponsor can issue and lets you filter by them - one of the four data points this catalogue was built around.
Primary source: Regulation (EU) 260/2012 (SEPA Regulation)
In the verified data
- Verified sponsors per country code, best covered first: UK 17, Lithuania 9, France 7, Spain 6, the Netherlands 6, Belgium 5. In total 21 codes are issued by at least one of the 52 live sponsors.
- 5 codes rest on a single sponsor (Finland, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Slovakia) - one partner's risk appetite away from no local option at all.
- White spots: none of the verified sponsors documents IBANs with the country code of Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia - the full coverage map.
Recomputed from the catalogue and the official EBA, ESMA and FCA registers on every build — how we verify.
Questions to ask a provider
- Which country codes can you issue in my target markets today - not on the roadmap?
- Are local IBANs dedicated to my customers, or virtual IBANs over a pooled account abroad?
- Can those IBANs receive SEPA Direct Debit collections, where IBAN discrimination bites hardest?