Why don't Irish banks print the IBAN on every debit card?

Impetus

Many European banks have the IBAN printed on the debit card - making it an easy point of reference from one's wallet/purse if the number is required.

Why is the Irish IBAN so long?

In reality one only needs

IE + 2 check digits + 5 digit branch number + 8 digit account number - almost as short as a standard payment card number, which is unique in the world, not to mind a country with under 5 million people.

eg IE48 3417 8245 5622 3 (example, not a valid account number) - rather than IE48 AIBK 9341 7824 5562 23 BIC AIBK IE 2D - which is such a waste of space and a needless complication when performing transactions.

The use of the 4 character bank id (eg AIBK) should be un-necessary because it is apparent from the branch number sorting code. This only happens in the "british isles", and Ireland stupidly copied their tautological stupidity. In most other countries, IBANs are all numeric.

The branch number only needs to be 5 digits - the six digit branch number is a dead legacy issue from the time that Ireland's banking system was colonized by GB. All Irish sorting codes begin with "9", therefore it could be omitted.

And there should be no need for the BIC (in Ireland or any other country using the IBAN) because the country code and branch number show the destination bank and branch. The BIC is therefore needless and tautological.

Why don't the powers that be think these issues out, before implementing a "system"? Make it user friendly etc?

Why haven't the banks standardized an IBAN barcode for bills and invoices, so that when paying a bill, one could scan the payment co-ordinates (IBAN) as well as the amount due and payee's reference data from the invoice? Using a mobile phone or PC scanner.

Two words come to one's mind, dysfunctional idiots.....

murphaph

The BIC will not be required after (I think) 2016 for SEPA payments. I think the no IBAN on the card is just a continuation of the no account number on the card policy which Irish banks always employed. It could be argued that it's a security feature but only if the bank's security is so poor that it requires it because as you rightly say continental bank cards more often than not include the account number and sort code. My German card has account number and sort code and also BIC and IBAN on the reverse.

coylemj

Your sort code and account number (from which the IBAN number can be worked out) are on any personal cheques you write so I can't see how the Irish banks could claim that leaving the IBAN number off debit cards is for reasons of 'security'.

Impetus

murphaph wrote: »

The BIC will not be required after (I think) 2016 for SEPA payments. I think the no IBAN on the card is just a continuation of the no account number on the card policy which Irish banks always employed. It could be argued that it's a security feature but only if the bank's security is so poor that it requires it because as you rightly say continental bank cards more often than not include the account number and sort code. My German card has account number and sort code and also BIC and IBAN on the reverse.

Why did the idiots in the ECB or wherever bring the BIC into the SEPA / IBAN payment procedure from day 1? My electronic banking service (which is not Irish - I don't live there) takes the IBAN for any bank in Europe/Middle East etc and auto-fills the payment form with Bank name, branch address etc so one can see it has the right details.

What security issues are involved? Knowing a 16 digit Visa debit card number and the IBAN will not let one past entering an online banking system or fooling a call centre. And if it did, the required authentication info could be amended accordingly.

The world is full of "for security" procedures that really say to me "we are too lazy / dumb to think things through and implement an intelligent/user-friendly system". It makes one nervous that there is little or no security really in place. As in airport security screening, after which one is invited to buy strong glass bottles containing highly inflammable alcohol and take it on board an aircraft. An Ideal weapon for someone with a grudge / has been victimized and is seeking "revenge".

Most security conscious banks in Europe use multi-factor (not two factor) authentication.

With them, you enter your contract number. The system displays a random number. You put your smart card into a portable reader and enter your approx. 10 digit PIN. The reader delivers an 8 character alphanumeric code. You enter this into the banking system. You get access. When you go to make a payment, the bank selects some 5 digits from your IBAN, which you must know (ie you see *****). You enter these into the smart card reader. It gives you an 8 character code, which one enters into the webpage. There is no possibility of a keyboard logger doing a replication attack, no matter how smart. Intelligent security. And there is no security reason not to give away your IBAN or Visa debit card number.

28064212

Of the 66 countries using IBANs (ref), Ireland's is the 21st shortest, and 39 of the countries use a mix of characters and numbers.

Also, BIC codes are retained in order to ensure cross-compatibility for non-SEPA countries, like the US and Australia

Impetus

28064212 wrote: »

Of the 66 countries using IBANs (ref), Ireland's is the 21st shortest, and 39 of the countries use a mix of characters and numbers.

Also, BIC codes are retained in order to ensure cross-compatibility for non-SEPA countries, like the US and Australia

A standard payment card number has 16 digits. There is no reason why an Irish IBAN does not have a roughly similar, user-friendly length. Hyper bureaucracy in some other countries is no excuse for Ireland adopting the same user-unfriendly approach.

If one is making a payment to a non IBAN country, one obviously has to quote the BIC. And incoming payments from non-IBAN compliants to SEPA accounts can include the BIC.

But there is no point in enforcing the BIC within the SEPA area, which adds needless complication for the average user. And dumb. Shows lack of thought by the SEPA lot, who should consider their position!

SpaceTime

I agree they made it far, far too complicated.

Why not just :

IE 99-99-99 00000000 X

Or, for all numeric

353 99 99 99 00000000 00

X could have been used as a check digit for example by simply using some formula that uses the other digits.

The Sort Code already clearly identified the bank and branch.

What was the point of AIBK and all that? It also seems to just use one code for entire institutions.

We already know 93 = AIB

Impetus

SpaceTime wrote: »

I agree they made it far, far too complicated.

Why not just :

IE 99-99-99 00000000 X

Or, for all numeric

353 99 99 99 00000000 00

X could have been used as a check digit for example by simply using some formula that uses the other digits.

The Sort Code already clearly identified the bank and branch.

What was the point of AIBK and all that? It also seems to just use one code for entire institutions.

We already know 93 = AIB

Yes - but you need the 2 figure check digits to detect data errors in input. And you don't need 6 digit sorting codes. Five digits will do because they all begin with 9 (in IRL). The country code must use ISO-3166 alpha 2 country code according to the standard. Even in Great Britain, (where they commonly refer to their country as "UK"), the IBAN must begin with GB.

The country code and check digit must comply with the standard - there is no standard requirement for a country to use long IBANS.

It is not unlike phone numbers. Denmark and Norway have 8 digit phone numbers and no area code, despite having larger populations and more phones than Ireland. Ireland's phone numbers have up to 11 digits if you include mobile voicemail. Spain has 9 digit phone numbers for a population of about 50 million people. No area codes either which are a waste of space in 2014.

28064212

Impetus wrote: »

But there is no point in enforcing the BIC within the SEPA area, which adds needless complication for the average user.

That's exactly what is happening, in 2016 BICs will be done away with in SEPA.

SpaceTime wrote: »

I agree they made it far, far too complicated.

Why not just :

IE 99-99-99 00000000 X

Or, for all numeric

353 99 99 99 00000000 00

X could have been used as a check digit for example by simply using some formula that uses the other digits.

The Sort Code already clearly identified the bank and branch.

What was the point of AIBK and all that? It also seems to just use one code for entire institutions.

We already know 93 = AIB

There must be two check digits, and they must come immediately after the country code, that's part of the basic IBAN specification.

And 93 does not always equal AIB, there are a couple of edge cases e.g. 930903 is J.P. Morgan Bank PLC.

Impetus wrote: »

And you don't need 6 digit sorting codes. Five digits will do because they all begin with 9 (in IRL).

While all IRL sort codes do start with 9, it's also a cross-border issue with the UK. It's not as simple as just dropping the 9, since Northern Irish banks need to keep the 9 for compatibility with the UK. It would have taken far more work to modify the various systems than simply leaving the extra 9 in

SpaceTime

That's largely because we somewhat corrupted the sort code system by not assigning enough codes to Ireland so small banks share them.

There are only 10 institutional codes.
90 to 99.

Maybe ditching the sort code might have been an idea

The Irish and UK system don't seem to have been integrated for quite a long time and SEPA basically replaces any previous ad hoc arrangements anyway.

Impetus

28064212 wrote: »

That's exactly what is happening, in 2016 BICs will be done away with in SEPA.


There must be two check digits, and they must come immediately after the country code, that's part of the basic IBAN specification.

And 93 does not always equal AIB, there are a couple of edge cases e.g. 930903 is J.P. Morgan Bank PLC.

Why not get it right day one. Accounting and payment systems will have to be modified again in 2016 to provide for no BIC, and half baked thinking.

28064212 wrote: »

While all IRL sort codes do start with 9, it's also a cross-border issue with the UK. It's not as simple as just dropping the 9, since Northern Irish banks need to keep the 9 for compatibility with the UK. It would have taken far more work to modify the various systems than simply leaving the extra 9 in

Northern Ireland is not in the Euro and does not use SEPA for all payments, unlike IRL. Why should the British tail be wagging the Irish dog? There are no more sorting codes, or shouldn't be any, if the Irish banking system was ready for the Feb 2014 deadline. Only IBANs are allowed in most parts of Europe now.

I don't know what your occupation is, but you sound like an apologist for IPSO/SEPA/CBI etc. You certainly do not understand the concept of user-friendliness. Perhaps your boards.ie user-id says something about you!

Impetus

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's largely because we somewhat corrupted the sort code system by not assigning enough codes to Ireland so small banks share them.

There are only 10 institutional codes.
90 to 99.

Maybe ditching the sort code might have been an idea

The Irish and UK system don't seem to have been integrated for quite a long time and SEPA basically replaces any previous ad hoc arrangements anyway.

It does not matter that each banking company does not have their own unique two digit prefix - SEPA incorporates the entire code - so only 5 digits are required.

While Switzerland has used the IBAN for years, and has hundreds of banks, not to mind branches, the branch code element of the IBAN is only 3 to 4 digits usually, with a max of 5.

http://www.swissbankcodes.com

Switzerland implemented the IBAN long before the dozy EU banks/ECB. As did several other non EU countries.

SpaceTime

I just think it's a missed opportunity to make a nice, easy-to-remember code that could have made online payments far more streamlined.

Instead, we've ended up with an awful cludge of a thing with numbers and letters.

I know other European countries have even more cumbersome codes, but it's just a major missed opportunity.

28064212

Impetus wrote: »

Why not get it right day one. Accounting and payment systems will have to be modified again in 2016 to provide for no BIC, and half baked thinking.

Eh... why? Banking systems will simply stop looking for BICs in SEPA payments, there is absolutely no need to modify any consumer software

Impetus wrote: »

Northern Ireland is not in the Euro and does not use SEPA for all payments, unlike IRL. Why should the British tail be wagging the Irish dog? There are no more sorting codes, or shouldn't be any, if the Irish banking system was ready for the Feb 2014 deadline.

You realise that Irish banks have Northern Irish branches, right?

Impetus wrote: »

Only IBANs are allowed in most parts of Europe now.

Incorrect again, the deadline for full migration was pushed back by six months because some countries weren't close to being ready (Ireland wasn't one of them, btw)

Impetus wrote: »

I don't know what your occupation is, but you sound like an apologist for IPSO/SEPA/CBI etc. You certainly do not understand the concept of user-friendliness. Perhaps your boards.ie user-id says something about you!

Perhaps I'm simply knowledgable about the subject and don't resort to meaningless ad-hominem attacks? So far you've claimed:

• The Irish IBAN is too long - it's shorter than most European countries
• The use of character bank ids only happens in the "british isles" - incorrect
• In most other countries, IBANs are all numeric - The majority of countries use characters in their IBANs
• Only IBANs are allowed in most parts of Europe now - Incorrect again

And you realise the Swiss IBAN is exactly 1 character shorter than the Irish one, right? And uses characters in their IBAN? Not exactly a great example for your "ideal"

Impetus

28064212 wrote: »

Eh... why? Banking systems will simply stop looking for BICs in SEPA payments, there is absolutely no need to modify any consumer software

Yes there is. As it stands the BIC is a required field on most systems. The entry of an IBAN must be translated by the software into the bank name and address. At present most systems use the BIC to do this function.

28064212 wrote: »

You realise that Irish banks have Northern Irish branches, right?

They are run on different systems and use different base currencies. Chalk and cheese. They are managed separately at the operational level too.

28064212 wrote: »

Incorrect again, the deadline for full migration was pushed back by six months because some countries weren't close to being ready (Ireland wasn't one of them, btw)

My Irish online bank still does not use IBANs for Irish payments. Ready? Everywhere else I know of, IBANs are required.

28064212 wrote: »

Perhaps I'm simply knowledgable about the subject and don't resort to meaningless ad-hominem attacks? So far you've claimed:

• In most other countries, IBANs are all numeric - The majority of countries use characters in their IBANs

• See the list of countries and IBAN formats - very very few have copied the British use of 4 letter bank codes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Number

28064212 wrote: »

And you realise the Swiss IBAN is exactly 1 character shorter than the Irish one, right? And uses characters in their IBAN? Not exactly a great example for your "ideal"

Switzerland has a much larger banked population than Ireland, and it has a universal banking system with multi-currency accounts that treat all currencies in an integrated way. You can't have a DKK or USD bank account at an Irish bank branch in Cork or Galway - it has to be held on a separate system in their "foreign" department (another hangover from the insular British mentality the banking system is suffering from!)

SpaceTime

I'd say it's a compromise between keeping antiquated bank computer systems happy and rolling out pan-EU (and beyond) payments.

Banks use amazingly ancient computer software.

Impetus

SpaceTime wrote: »

I'd say it's a compromise between keeping antiquated bank computer systems happy and rolling out pan-EU (and beyond) payments.

Banks use amazingly ancient computer software.

Yes they do use old computer systems. But Irish banks don't have the excuse of big country banks when it comes to system testing, because if you have 100 million accounts in your bank, your test system should be tested with perhaps 130 million dummy accounts over and over until it works perfectly. Also the Irish banks were one of the last networks in Europe to computerise their systems. So Irish banks have probably the least antiquated platform.

Anyway we are getting off topic. The IBAN system in Ireland seems to have been designed by a committee, who took some EU directive and some documents created by the British banking system, and put it into a photocopier.

Instead of sitting down and saying how can we make this system which will be used by every consumer and business in Ireland easy for them, user-friendly etc. The old saying "keep it simple, stupid". These people kept the stupid in their minds but paid no attention to the keep it short and simple!

SpaceTime

We've a long history of taking daft British systems that were designed by committee, sitting down for a few months, painting them green and then implementing them almost identically.

Take the ENORMOUS 13amp plug for example - For some reason we have to have exactly the same plug on a tumble dryer as an iPhone. Yet, every other system in the world has a little plug for a little appliance drawing say small current and a big heavy duty 16amp plug for big heavy duty things. Oddly enough, their houses don't burn down and they're not electrocuted by their 'dangerous continental plugs' very often either.

Same in plumbing systems - we have some really daft setups with tanks in attics and stuff that was adopted from the UK's system.

Could we not look around and find the best systems and implement those instead? That's kinda the advantage of being a small country!!

Impetus

SpaceTime wrote: »

We've a long history of taking daft British systems that were designed by committee, sitting down for a few months, painting them green and then implementing them almost identically.

Take the ENORMOUS 13amp plug for example - For some reason we have to have exactly the same plug on a tumble dryer as an iPhone. Yet, every other system in the world has a little plug for a little appliance drawing say small current and a big heavy duty 16amp plug for big heavy duty things. Oddly enough, their houses don't burn down and they're not electrocuted by their 'dangerous continental plugs' very often either.

Same in plumbing systems - we have some really daft setups with tanks in attics and stuff that was adopted from the UK's system.

Could we not look around and find the best systems and implement those instead? That's kinda the advantage of being a small country!!

Absolutely - Ireland and Malta - driving on the wrong side of the road (increasing car production costs and tourist accident rates), bad road signage, etc.

My parents house had two pin sockets when I was young (compatible with the rest of Europe) - as had most of Ireland - the electrification effort was effectively devised by Siemens in Munich. Then some bright genius committee decided to go for a completely different non-system used in GB. My mobile phone charger is miniscule with two pins compared with the Irish / British equivalent. My computer charger plug fits in everywhere except IRL, where an adapter is necessary. Trip switches and RCDs have made the fuse in the 3 pin flat plug obsolete, because they detect a current leak to ground far faster than a fuse. The continental system is also far safer because it involves each room's sockets being fed by a separate line to the trip switch - rather than running a high amp cable all over the place as happens in IRL.

At least the Maltese have the intelligence to put dual function 2 / 3 pin sockets in airports and lounges to charge up portable devices. A concept unknown in Ireland.

Crappy gravity plumbing, urinals that are too small, causing high maintenance smelly ground problems, poor thermal insulation in construction standards etc. If it is tacky and cheap, and the manual is in English, copy it seems to be the Irish solution.

WillieFlynn

Impetus wrote: »

Trip switches and RCDs have made the fuse in the 3 pin flat plug obsolete, because they detect a current leak to ground far faster than a fuse. The continental system is also far safer because it involves each room's sockets being fed by a separate line to the trip switch - rather than running a high amp cable all over the place as happens in IRL.

Both systems are just as safe. Older systems both here and on the continent used fuses rather than circuit breakers and RCD.

In both systems the Circuit breaker / fuse on the distribution board purpose is to protect the wiring from causing a fire due to over current (and additionally the appliance in the case of the continental system).

With both systems the RCD protects against earth faults, in particular shocks / electrocution

The reason for the fuse in plugs here is to, allow thinner wires be used on appliances with smaller loads, with out creating a fire risk. The size of the wire is determined not by the current flowing under normal conditions, but when there is a fault. If a 3A fuse is used then a wire rated just over 3A may be used, where as with the continental system wire rated for just over 20A would be needed for the same appliance, so as not to create a fire risk. This is why you should never put too large a fuse in to a plug.

You may be thinking about the older ring mains system which in the past was used here, which has some safety issues which are unrelated to the type of sockets which are used. The ring mains system was brought in just after WW2, when the UK was being rebuilt, to reduce the amount of copper needed for wiring. This indirectly was responsible for the plug fuse, as we use 32A fuse / CB on the distribution board rather than 20A as used in France. This would have lead to thicker appliance leads, so fuse in the plug were added to allow for smaller leads.

At least the Maltese have the intelligence to put dual function 2 / 3 pin sockets in airports and lounges to charge up portable devices. A concept unknown in Ireland.

The plugs here are much safer here than in most of Europe, as they have shutters to stop children putting metal objects into them.

China goes one better, their sockets will accept UK/IE, US, FR/DE plugs. They use US style plugs, but at 220V rather than 110V.

SpaceTime

Impetus wrote: »

Yes they do use old computer systems. But Irish banks don't have the excuse of big country banks when it comes to system testing, because if you have 100 million accounts in your bank, your test system should be tested with perhaps 130 million dummy accounts over and over until it works perfectly. Also the Irish banks were one of the last networks in Europe to computerise their systems. So Irish banks have probably the least antiquated platform.

I'm not so sure about that to be honest.

AIB had Banklink ATMs in the 1970s and were using an IBM system like this : http://kkraftonline.de/Museum/data/images/m%203624-1.jpg... That machine dates from 1974. So, they were certainly using Banklink for a long time before BOI introduced PASS.

Ulster Bank introduced ATMs in 1967 in a few locations.

Bank of Ireland for some reason makes a big deal about being the 'first' to introduce an ATM in 1980!? I have a funny feeling they're getting confused.

From what I gather they introduced a far more advanced ATM than anyone else had i.e. it could handle bill payments and other complicated transactions. AIB's system was very old-tech.

But, that would lead me to think that the Irish banks (at least Ulster and AIB) were quite heavily computerised by the early 70s or even in the 1960s.

The local branch network would have been very badly hindered by the terrible state of the telecommunications network in the 1960s/70s though. I would doubt P&T was very capable of carrying data in a modern sense. In the 60s and 1970s it only had modern services in cities and big towns where they'd rolled out crossbar exchanges. Many small towns still had plug-in operator switch boards using manual technology !

However, it wouldn't have stopped the banks from being quite heavily computerised in major branches and their HQ.

Our telecoms network was basically entirely redesigned and rebuilt from the late 70s onwards with a digital core network and with local exchanges very quickly moving to digital (starting with the most antiquated ones first). It went from being one of the worst in Europe to probably one of the best by the late 80s. So there was certainly no issues with banks being unable to use digital services to link branches and ATMs.


AIB computers in 1977 !

http://brandnewretro.ie/2013/11/03/the-office-aib-dublin-1977/