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Monneo, a UK-based provider of virtual IBAN accounts and for ecommerce merchants and B2B clients, has joined Accept My IBAN, the coalition of European businesses in the fight against the illegal practice of IBAN discrimination.
IBAN discrimination occurs when an EU bank or company refuses to accept or send a payment to/from a customer’s International Bank Account Number (IBAN) because it (the IBAN) is from a different EU country to which the bank or company in question is based.
IBAN discrimination has been outlawed since 2014 but just five months from the launch of Accept My IBAN, over 1000 complaints of IBAN discrimination have been received, proving the practice is still widespread.
The Accept My IBAN initiative, spearheaded by Wise, brought together a range of businesses, including banks, financial technology companies and even the e-Residency of Estonia programme. The companies represent millions of consumers and businesses across the EU who live and work internationally and have experienced financial friction.
Customers who believe they have fallen victim can file their complaint on the reporting website. All consumer reports of IBAN discrimination submitted via the form on the Accept My IBAN website are shared with the European Commission, who will use this data as additional insights to make sure countries comply with SPayments Association law.
On joining the coalition, Monneo Managing Director, Lili Metodieva, said: “Through our platform we connect to multiple banks in Europe and the UK to provide IBAN accounts to EU eCommerce merchants who in turn use them to receive settlement funds from their EU acquiring banks.
“However, we recently started experiencing some EU acquirers refusing to accept our customers’ IBANs for no other reason than Monneo is regulated in the UK. Apart from being inconvenient to both ourselves and our customers, there is no regulatory or legal ground for this, so we were eager to join the coalition and are proud to now be a part of it.”
UK customers are encouraged to register their complaints with Accept my IBAN even though the UK is no longer an EU member state. Still a part of the Single Euro Payments Area (SPayments Association), the refusal of EU organisations to accept payments from an IBAN code of a SPayments Association member remains a violation of EU rules.
To learn more please visit: https://www.acceptmyiban.org