> Of Louis JOURDAN > (I have been told that IBAN stands for International Bank Account > Number, a standard for electronic transfers). You should have no > difficulties.
I have made several bank to bank transfers US->UK and UK->US. It has been reasonably straightforward so far although you sometimes need to be determined with small banks. It used to cost me about 30 pounds but I have found a way to do it for no charge (which I don't think will apply in your case). International transactions should get simpler and cheaper soon because of increasing standardisation in the banking industry. IBAN will soon become mandatory for payments in Euros in the Eurozone. EU banks were using non-standard methods which meant that costs were high and payments were going missing at an alarming rate. The EU decided to standardise on IBAN because many banks already use it and it is an ISO standard. "Under the Regulation: charges for withdrawals from cash machines and the use of bank cards (up to �12,500) must be the same, when denominated in euros, for both national and cross-border transactions, from 1 July 2002 the charges for credit transfers (up to �12,500) between bank accounts must be the same, when denominated in euros, for both national and cross-border transactions, from 1 July 2003 customers must be properly informed in advance of charges for making national and cross-border payments and of any changes to those prices use of the ISO standard codes, namely IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), becomes mandatory, in order to allow banks to process credit transfers in a fully automated way banks will no longer need to declare to the authorities any payment below �12,500. payments in non-euro currencies will also be subject to the Regulation if the Member States where those currencies are used notify the Commission that they want the rules to apply. The Regulation�s rules will be extended to cash machine withdrawals, use of bank cards and credit transfers up to �50,000 from 1 January 2006. A Regulation, unlike a Directive, is directly applicable in the Member States without national implementing measures. A survey published by the Commission in September 2001 indicated that the average cost of cross-border credit charges remained virtually the same in 2001 as in 1993 (�24 for transfers of �100 � see IP/01/1293 and MEMO/01/294)." Survey and regulation at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/finances/payment/index.htm Of course the regulation does not apply to non-Euro and/or non-EU (i.e. US to France). My UK bank currently uses SWIFT rather than IBAN. -- Terry Simpson Human Factors Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.connected-systems.com Phone: +44 7850 511794
