I have news to the current problems with Revolut transactions to the Lithuanian IBANs, which I cover in my blog and on Twitter from time to time. My question to the conciliation board for banking issues in Germany (hosted by the German National Bank) has done some more intensive research and I thank them very much for it. It was a great service!
So this is mainly a follow up to the answer of the German Banking Association and they come to a different conclusion (at least now, I’m not sure if anything has changed in the meantime).
For all not speaking English, this is the short summary according to the conciliation board:
– They don’t know of any regulations disallowing different country codes in IBAN and BIC (which is mainly what SWIFT tells them as well, however, the German Banking Association said exception rules need to be defined in directories).
– They confirmed that the BIC, even in IBANonly-mode, is still necessary for routing (we knew that, but now we know it for sure).
– By contrast to the German Banking Association, they also did look up the BICs for the Lithuanian Banking Identifier 39200, which is possible here. And look what they’ve found: „REVOGB21XXX“ is correctly mentioned as BIC for LT IBANs of this bank. So the country code with the IBAN is correct. Interestingly, there are already more BICs with different country codes working with the Bank of Lithuania, namely Contis Financial Services Limited (GB, United Kingdom) or GFC Good Finance Company AS (EE, Estonia). So they’re used to it.
– That’s a difference to what the association told me, as they said, they couldn’t find the necessary data within the directories they’ve checked.
– The board also checked whether the BIC allows SEPA transactions, which it does.
– According to them, all relevant directories include all necessary information for the routing to work (at least from their checking as of today).
– As a consequence: If banks don’t accept the transfer, they encourage customers to ask their bank first.
This is some interesting news as the answer pretty much says, Revolut did everything right (or at least is now in every necessary directory). It seems it’s now onto the other banks to check, what’s an issue here. I still won’t encourage you to transfer a lot of money, as things still go wrong big time for some customers, but I’m now not too sure anymore, if the LT IBANs are really blocked for so much longer now.
For all German speakers, I’ve included an the official answer here:
Nach unserer Kenntnis gibt es keine Regelungen/Vorgaben, dass sich der Ländercode in IBAN und BIC nicht unterscheiden dürfen.
Da für die Abwicklung des zwischenbetrieblichen Zahlungsverkehrs der BIC weiterhin zwingend erforderlich ist, leitet der Zahlungsdienstleiter des Zahlers bzw. Zahlungsempfängers bei IBANonly den entsprechenden BIC anhand des in der IBAN enthaltenen Bankidentifikators ab und stellt ihn in den zu übermittelnden Zahlungsauftrag ein. Hierzu bedienen sich die Zahlungsdienstleiter i. d. R. eines europaweit gültigen Verzeichnisses, das verschiedene Anbieter auf Basis der einzelnen nationalen Verzeichnisse vertreiben.
Ein Verzeichnis aller „National authorities in SEPA countries that issue bank identifiers used in IBANs“ veröffentlicht die Europäische Zentralbank auf ihrer Internetseite (https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/retpaym/paymint/sepa/html/index.en.html).
In dem Verzeichnis der Bank of Lithuanian (http://www.lb.lt/zinynai/branches.aspx?language=en) ist zu dem litauischen Bankidentifikator „39200“ der Revolut LTD der BIC „REVOGB21XXX“ hinterlegt.Nach dem offiziellen Verzeichnis von SWIFT handelt es sich bei dem BIC „REVOGB21XXX“ um einen gültigen BIC. Dieser ist in SEPA derzeit nach den aktuellen Routingverzeichnissen für SEPA-Überweisungen adressierbar.
SEPA-Überweisungen zu Gunsten des BIC „REVOGB21XXX“ sind möglich; alle relevanten Verzeichnisse enthalten die entsprechenden Informationen.
Warum einzelne Zahlungsdienstleister entsprechende Zahlungen nicht akzeptieren, ist uns nicht bekannt.
Im Fall der Ablehnung eines Zahlungsauftrags hat der Auftraggeber der Zahlung die Möglichkeit, die interne Beschwerdestelle der betreffenden Bank einzuschalten.
I want to thank you for all the effort in finding out the real issue for this complicated issue!
Although it seems that the fault was not at the side of Revolut, I think this problem was big enough and frightening enough (disappearing money?) that Revolut could and should have issued an email or message otherwise (in App) to their customers.
They (Revolut) should thank you too.
Anyway, keep it going 😀
Yes, I agree that Revolut definitively does not really consider beta testing or disclaiming their beta test status clearly as something important. For me, the product has lost a lot during these days. :/
I meant effort, not interest 😉
Any further information on this since 2017? I just got a USD transaction rejected that was sent from Australia to my LT IBAN. Trying to figure out what went wrong since no one is providing too much information.
I don’t think the LT IBANs are valid anymore, or are they?. Are they still mentioned in your account? It should actually be GB IBANs for Euro. Also, for USDs, it’s probably better to use the Dollar-SWIFT Account of Revolut (with reference number) and not the EU IBAN.