What is IBAN?

IBAN (International Bank Account Number) is a client’s account number assigned according to the international (ISO13616) standard in banks and other financial authorities.

The European Banks Standard Committee (ECBS) in 1997 adopted a decision on the implementation of a new account number format IBAN in the financial authorities of the European countries. The IBAN account format permits both to recognize the beneficiary’s country and account, as well as check the mathematical preciseness of the indicated beneficiary’s account.

In each country the length of the IBAN account country may be different (even up to 34 letters and figures, which consist of):
2 letters being the country code
2 control figures
bank’s code
bank’s client account number (figures, letters)

What is Latvian IBAN?

Since January 1, 2005 all Latvian banks and financial authorities introduced a unified standard and principle for the preparation of client settlement account numbers for domestic payments and international transfers. The Latvian IBAN complies with the international IBAN standard and in structure it is similar to client account identifiers used in other European countries’ transnational payments.
The Latvian IBAN consists of 21 symbols:
2 letters (country code)
2 figures (control numbers)
4 letters (bank’s identification (BIC) code)
13 symbols (account number)

An example of a Danske Banka IBAN account:
LVxxMARA0000123456789

LV - country code
xx - control numbers
MARA – bank’s identification code (BIC)
0000123456789 - account number

How can I know that the beneficiary’s account number is IBAN?

In each country the length of IBAN account number may be different (at maximum - 34 letter and figure symbols). Currently IBAN accounts in different countries are 18-28 symbols long, the country code is followed by letters, as well as numbers. IBAN always starts with the respective European country code, for example, LV, GB, DE.

Danske Banka’s home page can give you the possibility to check the correctness of any country’s IBAN in IBAN checker.