IBAN-Name Check

Since October 2025, European banks in all 41 SEPA countries have been required to check whether the name and IBAN of the recipient match for every digital European transfer. This check takes place while the payer enters the transfer digitally using mobile banking or internet banking. In the Netherlands, this check is called the IBAN Name Check. The international term is ‘Verification of Payee’ or VoP.

The IBAN Name Check reduces errors made by payers when entering the name and IBAN of a recipient. The check also offers protection against invoice fraud, among other things, whereby a fraudster sends false invoices on behalf of a trusted company using their own IBAN.

How the IBAN Name Check works

When making a bank transfer via internet banking or the bank’s mobile app, the payer enters the name and IBAN of the recipient. Before the payer confirms the transfer, the payer’s bank checks whether the name and IBAN match. The bank also checks this for cross-border transfers with an IBAN from a recipient in another SEPA country.

If the name and IBAN of the recipient do not match, the payer will see a warning. The payer can then cancel, correct, or confirm the transfer. If the payer explicitly chooses to do so, they can confirm the transfer without changes after receiving a warning about the name and IBAN; the bank may not block the transfer at that point.

The payer may receive these three warnings:

• The name entered differs slightly from the name associated with the IBAN:
  The payer sees a warning with the correct name associated with the recipient’s IBAN.
• The name entered differs significantly from the name associated with the IBAN:
  The payer sees a warning without the correct name of the recipient. In this way, the IBAN Name Check protects the privacy of other account holders. You cannot enter a fake name with an IBAN to find out the correct name associated with it.
• The name and IBAN cannot be verified:
  The payer sees a warning that they must verify the recipient’s name and IBAN in another way. This can happen, for example, with a very new payments account that is not yet available for verification by other banks.

The payer can therefore ignore this warning and confirm the transfer unchanged and have it executed by the bank.

If the name and IBAN of the recipient entered do match, the payer will not receive a warning but will see a green check mark.

Legally required

Verification of Payee is part of the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR), and European banks are required to offer it for every digital European transfer within and between all 41 SEPA countries. This must therefore also work if the IBANs of the payer and recipient come from different SEPA countries.