Bankers Almanac, the leading provider of reference data for international payments, due diligence and risk assessment has further enhanced its international payments solution to help improve efficiency in the processing of cross-border and domestic transactions.
Bankers Almanac's International Bank Account Number (IBAN) Search allows clients to validate IBANs through to the clearing code level and identify the issuing bank if the IBAN is invalid. To enable compliance with Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) regulations, Bankers Almanac has improved its IBAN Search with the addition of over 73,000 IBAN BICs. These are the Bank Identifier Codes (BIC) issued alongside IBANs originating from each specific clearing code and are provided for use when making SEPA compliant payments.
The IBAN Search is an integral part of Bankersalmanac.com's payments solution and supports the comprehensive settlement data currently provided. Bankers Almanac continues to be the only supplier of Standard Settlements Instructions (SSIs) to operate a 90-day verification and update cycle for this data. It is also the only commercially available solution that provides the SWIFT BIC attached to each SSI list allowing banks to identify the correct counterpart instructions quickly and send messages accordingly.
To facilitate accurate messaging in payments, Bankers Almanac also holds the connected SWIFT BIC equivalent for the unconnected BICs on its database as well as the principal location for SWIFT BIC and clearing code. Bankersalmanac.com's strict editorial policy ensures that each bank confirms these details before they are made available to users, helping to ensure accuracy and create confidence in the quality of the data.
Commenting on the developments, Ben Cleaveley, Senior Product Manager for Bankers Almanac said: "Helping clients to comply with SEPA remains a high priority for Bankers Almanac. We are committed to providing accurate data within a product that can form an integral part of their international payments processing operations."