Travel payments glossary

International Bank Account Number (IBAN)

A standardised account number used for international bank transfers.

Plain-English definition

An IBAN is a standardised account-number format used for international bank transfers. It encodes the country, check digits, bank identifier and account number in a fixed structure so the receiving bank can validate the format before submission. IBAN is mandatory for SEPA payments and widely accepted for non-SEPA cross-border transfers as well.

Why it matters in travel

Travel businesses paying European suppliers, refunding European customers or accepting bank payments from European agencies rely on accurate IBANs to keep funds moving without delays. IBAN format checks catch many mis-entries before money leaves the bank.

For a UK operator paying European hoteliers, every IBAN is a chance to make a £20,000 mistake. The format check catches most errors, but a typo that produces a valid-looking IBAN against the wrong account is exactly the kind of error that takes weeks to resolve and tens of customer-service hours. The discipline of validation matters.

Travel businesses with mature payment operations store IBANs against the supplier or beneficiary record once, validate them on entry, and never re-enter them from a contract again. The businesses that re-key IBANs every time a payment goes out introduce error rates that compound with growth.

How felloh helps

felloh stores supplier and beneficiary IBANs alongside the booking and supplier record so payments leave with valid details and arrivals are matched back to the right booking automatically.

Connect the dots.

See how payments, settlement, refunds and reporting evidence connect around every booking.