Croatian IBAN registered with the European Committee for Banking Standards

Published: 21/1/2005

The European Committee for Banking Standards (www.ecbs.org) entered the Croatian IBAN into the Register of European Account Numbers, thus creating the conditions for the domestic banks to start issuing internationally accepted IBANs to their customers.

The use of the Croatian IBAN will enable more efficacious payment transactions, automatic processing and cost reduction of payment orders as well as improved liquidity management. Full justification and benefits of the IBAN will become visible once further liberalisation of the foreign exchange regime is completed, i.e. after full automation of cross-border collections and payments is achieved.

The Croatian banks may start issuing IBANs to their customers immediately, while this will become mandatory as of 1 October 2007. At its session of 17 November 2004, the Council of the Croatian National Bank issued a Decision on the Generation and Use of the International Bank Account Number (IBAN) for use in international payment transactions. The Croatian IBAN is a unique customer account identifier at a bank managing kuna and/or foreign currency accounts of participants in the payment system.

Use of IBAN is mandatory in all EU countries, and is also being adopted by the countries planning to join the EU.