What is a local IBAN and do I need one? 🤔

* The following article applies to Revolut Bank UAB customers only.

If you’ve ever faced a situation where your employer or a utility company has refused to accept your Revolut IBAN and asked you for a ‘local’ account, you’ve fallen victim to IBAN discrimination. While this is illegal under Article 9 of the SEPA Regulation, it remains a prominent issue faced by a lot of our customers.

What is an IBAN?

The International Bank Account Number, or IBAN for short, is a unique combination of up to 34 letters and numbers used to identify a bank account from millions around the world. Since 2014, banks across Europe adapted the IBAN as a way to standardise Euro payments. IBANs begin with a 2 digit country code which denotes where the account is based.

If you’re a long time customer of Revolut in Europe, you may have noticed that when you opened your account with Revolut, your Euro IBAN was generated with the country code ‘LT’. This is because the IBAN was issued by Revolut Payments UAB which is a Lithuanian e-money institution.

Regardless of where you are within the SEPA zone, you should be able to use the original ‘LT’ IBAN to send and receive EUR payments, set up EUR direct debits and receive your salary in EUR. However, in practice, many employers and merchants continue to discriminate on the basis of country codes, length and other factors. While we encourage our customers facing such issues to register a formal complaint, we understand that it can be very time-consuming and inconvenient.

How does a local IBAN benefit me?

Having a local IBAN means your account details have all the characteristics of a locally issued IBAN such as the country code and length. This means a customer with local account details will easily be able to:

• Pay tax in instalments by direct debit
• Deposit salaries directly into their Revolut accounts
• Set up an online account with phone providers and avoid the additional paperwork required for non-local IBANs

How can I get one?

While we’re working tirelessly to bring this functionality to our customers across Europe, it will currently be available to a limited population of eligible customers.

If you’re an eligible customer, you’ll be able to see a to-do tile in your Revolut app. You’ll also receive an email and a push notification to get your local IBAN. You’ll be asked to enter some additional details for verification and you’ll need to consent to the T&Cs. Once you pass our verification checks, you’ll be issued a brand new, fully compatible, local IBAN with which you can start making local payments right away. To ensure a seamless transition, your old LT IBAN will still work for inbound payments for a limited period of time.