How to identify the bank by the bank account number? It is not a difficult task. We only need two components. First, find out the meaning of each number in the bank number. Second, we need to know the bank identifiers assigned by the central bank. If you want to check which bank your transfer will go to, you will find the necessary tips and, above all, a useful tool.

A tool for identifying the bank by account number

To facilitate your task, we have provided a simple and safe tool, thanks to which you can determine the bank in a few seconds by the entered account number.

If you have a suggestion to use the tool, please contact us via this form.

When making a transfer, we provide the full name of the recipient and the 26-digit bank account number. The ideal situation is when both parties to the transfer have accounts in the same institution – then the money will go to the other person immediately. Everything changes when the banks differ. The funds are then transferred into the Elixir system (see text: Elixir Sessions), or by fast instant transfer. In such a situation, you can specify when the transfer will arrive, however, we must check in advance with the bank servicing the recipient’s account. Let’s focus next on what the bank account number looks like.

Bank account number: How do you know the bank?

To start, the account number can be in IBAN (International Bank Account Number) or NRB (Bank Account Number) format. For domestic transfers (in PLN), the latter is usually used, while the IBAN is more often used in banking for foreign transfers.

The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) was created in the 1990s by the European Committee on Banking Standards. The form of the new account was to facilitate payments between EU countries.

In order to determine the name of the bank, we need to focus on the digits in the 3-6 positions of the bank account number, because they determine the identifier of the banking institution (commercial bank, cooperative bank or cooperative bank association). To get an example number:

86 10202498 00008602026ade

Thus, the bank ID will be the sequence:

1020

It should be noted that in the case of commercial banks (such as PKO BP or Santander Bank Polska), the first three digits are really enough to identify the bank with the account number, since the last digit is always 0. Four digits are necessary to identify cooperative banks.

The next step is to check which bank has the specific ID. For this purpose, the following table will be useful:

What does a bank account number consist of?

We have already written about the meaning of the individual letters of the NRB and IBAN numbers in the article on bank account numbers. However, remember that the account number may be in the form of NRB (Bank Account Number) or IBAN (International Bank Account Number). The NRB consists of 26 numbers. The IBAN numbers for Polish banks consist of 28 characters, the first two of which are the country code, and the next 26 digits correspond to the NRB number.

Let’s summarize: If the Bank Account Number (BAN) has the following form:

86 10202498 1111222233334444

The IBAN will be in the following format

PL86 10202498 1111222233334444

Information about the banking institution is included in the NRB number (26 digits). So, if you have an IBAN, just remove the first two letters to get an NRB.

Bank account number: what information does it contain?

An NRB number has the following format:

AAAAAAAA version BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

The meaning of odd numbers is as follows:

• CC – is a checksum that allows you to determine whether the account number is valid;
• AAAAAAAA (8 digits) – This is called the Bank Reconciliation Number – Yes, that’s the part that matters to us!
• BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB (16 digits) – this is the customer’s account number;

Let’s take a closer look at the numbers in positions 3-10 of the bank account number. This is called the bank invoice number:

• The first four digits of the bank’s settlement number identify the banking institution;
• The next three numbers identify the bank branch. Keep this in mind because some banks are part of another bank and can only be identified by their branch ID. The string of three zeros usually represents the head office of the bank;
• In the last position there is a verification number that is used to verify the correctness of the bank’s settlement number;

What kind of bank is this? Doubts about foreign transactions

So far we have discussed how to identify a bank operating in Poland. How can you identify a foreign institution using the IBAN?

Although the Bank Definition System links up to 68 countries around the world, each has its own national bank equivalent. Interestingly, account numbers differ between countries in the number of characters, and sometimes you can also find letters with numbers.

For example, some of the longer IBAN numbers are characteristic of banks in Kuwait (30 characters), Jordan (30), and Brazilian (29 numbers and characters). Hungary, Albania and Azerbaijan have a similar number as long as Poland (28). However, the “record” belongs to the Caribbean Saint Lucia – up to 32 characters.

On the other side are Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands (18 letters each), Slovenia and North Macedonia (19), Switzerland (21) and Germany. We need to enter the minimum number of characters when requesting a transfer to Norway (15) and Belgium (16). On the other hand, the characters appear in the account numbers held by, among other things, by in Malta, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands.

One rule remains the same: even the shortest IBAN is preceded by a specific country code. Some countries have more than one code, such as Denmark (DK, FO, GL). For example:

يمكن العثور على جميع رموز وأنماط أرقام IBAN لبلدان معينة على هذا الموقع.

يتقدم العالم إلى الأمام ، ونحن في الوقت الحاضر نقوم بتحويل الأموال أكثر فأكثر ليس نقدًا ، ولكن عن طريق التحويل المصرفي. نود أحيانًا معرفة البنك الذي يحتفظ بحساب معين من أجل تحديد ما لا يقل عن تقريبًا (بناءً على جلسة Elixir) عندما يتلقى المستلم الأموال منا. قد تكون معرفة رقم الحساب المصرفي مفيدة أيضًا في إدارة الشؤون المالية للمنزل – إذا احتجنا إلى إجراء تحويل عاجل وكان لدى الشخص الآخر حساب في بنك آخر ، فسيكون لدينا تحويل فوري ، ولكن بعد ذلك يتعين علينا أن نأخذ في الاعتبار المزيد التكاليف. إذا كنا لا نريد أن نتحملها ، فإن الأمر يستحق التخطيط للنفقات مسبقًا ، مع مراعاة بنك المستلم وجلسات الإكسير.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with others. In this way, you will help us develop this website with better content. Also write to us if the tools we suggested in the text were useful to you.