Start-up initiative counts 1000 cases of IBAN discrimination - in just five months

Accept my IBAN" was founded by N26 and Raisin from Germany, among others. Now the initiative is taking stock.

1000 cases of IBAN discrimination have been reported by the Accept my IBAN initiative, which, according to its own statements, is celebrating a "first milestone." The coalition wants to draw attention to the fact that, contrary to legal regulations, a foreign IBAN can still be a disadvantage for customers.

Actually, companies in the EU area are not allowed to discriminate against their customers for having an IBAN from a country or bank they do not like. But it does happen that they refuse or make a transaction more difficult because of the IBAN. An EU directive was supposed to prevent this.

But apparently this is still happening to some German users. Every third person affected has a German IBAN, according to the Accept my IBAN initiative. Especially financial institutions would make the free choice of an IBAN difficult, in second place the association lists communication companies, which might include mobile phone providers. According to the initiative's analysis, expats in other European countries suffer particularly from discrimination, especially in neighbouring France. There the discrimination hunters registered approximately 50 per cent of the German IBAN disadvantages. Accept my IBAN is now forwarding the cases to the European Commission.

The merger to the initiative went back to N26, Revolut, Klarna, Sumup, Raisin and Wise. In the meantime, many European start-ups and fintechs have joined, including Contis, Fire, Monese, Starling, Yuropay or Payoneer.