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IBAN Only Rule

As competent authority of the SEPA Regulation (EU) No 260/2012, the Central Bank of Malta would like to inform the public that as from 1 February 2016 the IBAN only rule will apply for SEPA payments.

This effectively means that a payer would no longer be required to provide the BIC (Business Identifier Code, which is locally also referred to as the SWIFT Code) of the payee for both domestic and cross-border SEPA payments. Although the BIC can still be provided, this will not be mandatory and payers will only be required to provide the IBAN of the payee for the purpose of making a payment.

To this effect, service providers which support and/or use payment generating software are encouraged to ensure that printed and online forms used in the collection of data for SEPA payment processing are amended accordingly, so that the provision of the BIC does not remain mandatory.