IBAN, which originated in the European Union, was quickly adapted for use in other countries due to its versatility. This new system puts in failsafe measures to ensure that money transfers reach their destinations without confusion over differing bank account number standards.
Previous systems lefts customers fumbling with various formats and lengths of bank account numbers, and banks frustrated trying to find the correct destination of the transfer if a mistake in the account number had been made.
The alphanumeric number will contain 26 characters, with the first two characters representing the country that the account in question is located in. In Turkey, for example, the number will look similar to TR 02 00001 0 1234567891234567. The first eight digits after the country code will include control and bank information, with the last 16 digits representing the account number in question.
The Turkish Central Bank announced in the Official Gazette earlier this month that it will allow those who do not know their IBAN to use their previous bank account numbers for a two-year period of transition after verbally informing a bank officer of their intention to do so, pushing the complete enforcement of this requirement to 2012.
