Prohibited banks charge for conversion of NIB in IBAN – TVI24

The NIB will be replaced by an international account identifier (IBAN) for all bank transfers made from Monday, but the law prevents banks from charging fees for the conversion.

The end of the Bank Identification Number (BIN) in the European Union was imposed by a European regulation of March 2013 which led to the conversion of NIB in IBAN from February 2014, but allowed the Member States prorrogassem the deadline.

This extension was ordered by the Portuguese Government on 18 October 2013, issued a decree allowing for two more years using the NIB in conducting domestic operations, but enabling banks to make available one NIB converter.

“is established in this law, the right of the payment service providers requesting users to ‘business identifier code’ (BIC code the bank) to carry out credit transfers and direct debit transactions until 1 February 2016 “, reads the preamble to the decree of the Ministry of Finance published on that day.

However, clarified Finance, banks “are required, until February 1, 2016,” to process domestic payment operations requested by consumers in the NIB is used and “can not charge any charges associated with the eventual conversion of the NIB to the ‘international bank account number’ (IBAN) “.

Notwithstanding this obligation, the banks could “demand” to 0 “February 1 this year, both national operations and cross-border credit transfers and direct debits, the payment service users indicate them, respectively, the Business Identifier Code (BIC) the payment service provider of the payee or the payer’s payment service provider.

NIB will disappear on Monday as handle bank accounts, being replaced by the IBAN, but the Bank of Portugal reassures private banking customers about the change, blaming only companies by mandatory IBAN use.

From February 1, the use of NIB will summed up the transfers ordered in ATM network, but mandatory IBAN for the remaining wire transfers, but who has given direct debit orders, to pay for services such as water or electricity has to travel to the bank to make the change from NIB to IBAN.

“For permanent transfers and direct debit authorizations already granted, the banks will make the automatic conversion of the NIB for IBAN” clarified source Bank of Portugal Lusa.

However, according to the same source, private customers are from Monday to move to indicate the IBAN of the accounts payer and the payee, which happens to be the unique identifier of the accounts, and all payments to be started indicating the IBAN, except for domestic transfers in ATM.

For companies already there are more requirements: “The bodies of the Public Administration and companies (with the exception of micro-enterprises) will have to use the ISO 20022 XML format, or sending either on receipt of credit transfer and direct debit files “ warns the Bank and Portugal.

But this change should not, however, cause problems to when companies pay their suppliers or salaries to workers, because the IBAN is very similar to NIB, preceding the NIB 21 digits of the country code, which in Portugal is PT50.

The good perspective was confirmed to Lusa by the Business Confederation of Portugal – CIP: “Businesses dominate issues such as NIB and IBAN are used, and I do not think there will be problems,” said the president of CIP, António Saraiva.

When two months before the deadline set for the end of the NIB and its replacement by the IBAN, the Bank of Portugal issued a recommendation to general government bodies and companies that were not yet using the IBAN to contact their banks and other payment service providers, in order to timely effecting the necessary changes to ensure the smooth realization of its payments and collections.

“The general government bodies and companies that do not use IBAN as identifiers of the accounts and the ISO 20022 XML format in communicating with their banks see will be unable to achieve credit transfers and debits direct (eg, salary payments, payments to suppliers or collections of goods and services), “reads the alert published on December 01.

The IBAN, which was already used in transfers between different countries accounts, and will now also apply to domestic transactions, will allow those who work abroad to receive the salary in your resident account in Portugal or pay the electricity, water or gas from a foreign residence indicating the account domiciled in Portugal.