Credit union paid to different account (not mine)

[Freelance]

Why would anyone do this?

When the IBAN was first introduced it was common practice to take the payee's NSC and account number which you had on file and enter them into an IBAN calculator, rather than contacting the payee and requesting the IBAN directly. The bank's themselves encouraged it. That was almost a decade ago, and while it still works provided the account number and NSC are valid and current, given the passage of time it is poor practice to use decade old date to make a payment. Far better to request and obtain the payee's IBAN directly.

IBAN Calculator's:
BOI
AIB
Generic

 

[T McGibney]

When the IBAN was first introduced it was common practice to take the payee's NSC and account number which you had on file and enter them into an IBAN calculator, rather than contacting the payee and requesting the IBAN directly. The bank's themselves encouraged it. That was almost a decade ago, and while it still works provided the account number and NSC are valid and current, given the passage of time it is poor practice to use decade old date to make a payment. Far better to request and obtain the payee's IBAN directly.

I still use an IBAN calculator/verification tool literally every time I need to input an IBAN. It's as easy a way to check them as any.

If the account number and NSC aren't both valid and current, the IBAN won't work.

 

[Monbretia]

I haven't used the generator/checker thing either, my main transfers would only ever be between my own accounts in other banks, hence I pretty much knew the IBAN off by heart but unfortunately put in the wrong prefix/old sort code bit!

 

[Fortune]

Why would anyone do this?

Some businesses use out of date software which still runs off sort codes and bank accounts. To input an account, they need to convert it into sort code and account number, then when spitting it out the other end for a payment file the use software to turn them back into IBANs. Probably why some are reluctant to use non Irish accounts for direct debits.

 

[ClubMan]

Why would anyone do this?

I think that @Freelance maybe meant trying to guess the IBAN given the account sort code and number? I don't think that many people would do that to be honest. Although there are calculators/validators online that will do this for you if, for some reason, you only have the sort code and account number and not the IBAN (and BIC). E.g.:

Calculate an IBAN

Enter a domestic bank account and calculate the IBAN and find BIC (SWIFT). IBAN conversion with correctness guarantee.

www.ibancalculator.com

Edit: sorry, I replied before seeing all recent posts on the same issue.

 

[Freelance]

If the account number and NSC aren't both valid and current, the IBAN won't work.

I've no wish to enter into an argument with you about this, and you are obviously free to do as you wish, but in order that we don't mislead anybody with the above statement, I'll add the following.

I've just entered the following into the the IBAN checkers I mentioned earlier. In both cases they passed with flying colours and delivered an IBAN and BIC.

• 98-54-80 15959704
• 99-02-70 10274781

The first was an Ulster Bank current account which was last used in 2003 and closed in 2004 (note 2003/2004, not 2023/2024), 10 years before IBANs were introduced.
The second was a KBC deposit account which was last used and closed in 2016

So entering account numbers and sort codes into an IBAN checker and receiving an IBAN doesn't indicate that the IBAN is current. Whether or not you consider it to be valid is moot, as it is useless.

 

[T McGibney]

I've no wish to enter into an argument with you about this, and you are obviously free to do as you wish, but in order that we don't mislead anybody with the above statement, I'll add the following.

I've just entered the following into the the IBAN checkers I mentioned earlier. In both cases they passed with flying colours and delivered an IBAN and BIC.

• 98-54-80 15959704
• 99-02-70 10274781

The first was an Ulster Bank current account which was last used in 2003 and closed in 2004 (note 2003/2004, not 2023/2024), 10 years before IBANs were introduced.
The second was a KBC deposit account which was last used and closed in 2016

So entering account numbers and sort codes into an IBAN checker and receiving an IBAN doesn't indicate that the IBAN is current. Whether or not you consider it to be valid is moot, as it is useless.

Ok, but in all seriousness who in 2025 is going to give me an Ulster Bank or KBC IBAN to enable me to set up a ROS Debit Instruction to facilitate their tax payments?

 

[cloughy]

Iban checkers just calculate the check digit which is the 2 digits after the IE , and will validate an iban if its correctly calculated.
They don't check if a valid iban the account is open, how could they given ibans are used in hundreds if countries, so a closed accounts iban would pass the checker, but you obviously couldn't transfer funds to it.

 

[Dr Strangelove]

I still use an IBAN calculator/verification tool literally every time I need to input an IBAN.

Do you not insist payees send you a machine-readable IBAN which you copy paste?

That’s what I do. Risk of error is all theirs.

 

[Fortune]

Do you not insist payees send you a machine-readable IBAN which you copy paste?

That’s what I do. Risk of error is all theirs.

Where would you be entering an IBAN that wouldn't validate it before accepting it?

 

[T McGibney]

Do you not insist payees send you a machine-readable IBAN which you copy paste?

That’s what I do. Risk of error is all theirs.

I consider it safer still to copy and paste and use the tool to verify the given IBAN. Copy & paste isn't foolproof, and in the past I've found I's transcribed as 1's.

It's a pain in the neck to process the payment of a customer's tax bill only to discover weeks or months later that the payment never went through so an extra precaution to avoid that is worth it.