Standing order to non-Irish SEPA account

Bob24

I am a Bank of Ireland customer and am trying to set-up a standing order to a bank account in France from 365 online. I am not able to do so because the IBAN field on the website is too short to enter a French IBAN number (It looks like Irish IBANs are 22 characters long while French ones are 27 Characters long, and your website is not letting me enter the last 5 digits for the account number).

I contacted customer service via the website who gave the following answer:


"You cannot set a foreign account up as a Standing Order. You can add it as a payee under manage accounts manage payees."

I am however fairly sure that as part of the SEPA rules, Eurozone banks are legally obliged to allow the same set of services to non domestic SEPA accounts as they do for domestic accounts, and that it is a legal requirement for Bank of Ireland to allow me to setup this standing order. This has been confirmed by a few posters here on the banking forum.

Could you please please confirm whether this is a mistake from the customer service representative (and assist me in setting up the standing order), or whether Bank of Ireland's official position on this matter indeed is not to allow standing orders to non-Irish Eurozone accounts? (which I would challenge with relevant authorities, but I would like to confirm your position first)

Thanks in advance.

Bank of Ireland: Janet

Bob24 wrote: »

I am a Bank of Ireland customer and am trying to set-up a standing order to a bank account in France from 365 online. I am not able to do so because the IBAN field on the website is too short to enter a French IBAN number (It looks like Irish IBANs are 22 characters long while French ones are 27 Characters long, and your website is not letting me enter the last 5 digits for the account number).

I contacted customer service via the website who gave the following answer:


"You cannot set a foreign account up as a Standing Order. You can add it as a payee under manage accounts manage payees."

I am however fairly sure that as part of the SEPA rules, Eurozone banks are legally obliged to allow the same set of services to non domestic SEPA accounts as they do for domestic accounts, and that it is a legal requirement for Bank of Ireland to allow me to setup this standing order. This has been confirmed by a few posters here on the banking forum.

Could you please please confirm whether this is a mistake from the customer service representative (and assist me in setting up the standing order), or whether Bank of Ireland's official position on this matter indeed is not to allow standing orders to non-Irish Eurozone accounts? (which I would challenge with relevant authorities, but I would like to confirm your position first)

Thanks in advance.

Hi Bob24, 

Thanks for your patience we are looking into this for you.

Janette

Bob24

Bank of Ireland: Janet wrote: »

Hi Bob24, 

Thanks for your patience we are looking into this for you.

Janette

Ok, great to hear this is being looked into. Thanks Janette.

Bank of Ireland: Billy

Bob24 wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Janet wrote: »

Hi Bob24, 

Thanks for your patience we are looking into this for you.

Janette

Ok, great to hear this is being looked into. Thanks Janette.

Hi Bob24, 

I've sent you a PM. 

Thanks

Billy

Legislator

Bank of Ireland: Billy wrote: »

Bob24 wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Janet wrote: »

Hi Bob24, 

Thanks for your patience we are looking into this for you.

Janette

Ok, great to hear this is being looked into. Thanks Janette.

Hi Bob24, 

I've sent you a PM. 

Thanks

Billy

If you are gone private with your response can one assume that a S/O in this instance is not possible. 

Tow

BOI's paper standing order form has the same 22 character IBAN limit, it would appear they have not specified/designed their systems correctly.

If you have a look at AIB's paper form, they allow the full 34 character IBAN. But in both cases they only allow 18 characters for the 'Reference' (cough, cough 'End To End ID') field, rather than 35 characters. In AIB's case they only allow 18 characters for the bank account name, rather than the 70 allowed by SEPA...

AIB: http://business.aib.ie/content/dam/aib/business/docs/products/payments/AIB600F149_Lo.pdf
BOI: http://www.sarsfieldsgaanewbridge.ie/sites/default/files/Bank%20of%20Ireland%20Standing%20Order%20Mandate.pdf

Bank of Ireland: Billy

Legislator wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Billy wrote: »

Bob24 wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Janet wrote: »

Hi Bob24, 

Thanks for your patience we are looking into this for you.

Janette

Ok, great to hear this is being looked into. Thanks Janette.

Hi Bob24, 

I've sent you a PM. 

Thanks

Billy

If you are gone private with your response can one assume that a S/O in this instance is not possible. 

Hi Legislator, 

We decided to send the OP a PM because the tone of the response we received wasn't in keeping with our Talk to Forum.  

As you correctly mention, it is not possible to set up this S/O. 

Thanks

Billy

Tow

Bank of Ireland: Billy wrote: »

We decided to send the OP a PM because the tone of the response we received wasn't in keeping with our Talk to Forum.  

Hi Billy,

I see nothing wrong with Bob24's response, can we take it the response from within BOI to his query in where the problem lies?

I have raised numerous basic SEPA data entry issues before and have not received satisfactory responses, apart from the time you had the mobile app developer on. I know it is all outsourced and initially it was all BOI could do to keep the show on the road. But still, the bank should at least acknowledge these small issues and give a rough guide line as to when they will be fixed rather than doing its best to not acknowledge the problems in the first place.

JTMan

Hi Billy,

Can you please advise as to why this is not possible. 

There is a legal obligation on all SEPA county banks to offer SEPA direct debits. Why have BoI set up an incorrect character limit on IBAN fields?

Many thanks. 

Bob24

I can confirm the private message I received explains with some legal wording that while Bank of Ireland has obligations with regards to processing any euro Credit Transfer and Direct Debit payments in the SEPA zone, they do not believe every single service offered for domestic accounts (including standing orders) also has to be offered for non-domestic SEPA accounts.

Thanks Billy for double checking this for me.

This is not what I expected, but I am no SEPA legal expert.

Regardless of legal requirements I assume that once you support credit transfers, setting up standing orders probably is pretty easy to implement. So why not offering the service to customers who would like to use it? (as mentioned by Tow, other banks do)

In any case, I dropped a message to the ECB's information mailbox to confirm they are in line with what BoI replied and to suggest including standing orders in SEPA (one email from one person in Ireland probably won't change much ... but who knows :-)).

Bank of Ireland: Janet

Tow wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Billy wrote: »

We decided to send the OP a PM because the tone of the response we received wasn't in keeping with our Talk to Forum.  

Hi Billy,

I see nothing wrong with Bob24's response, can we take it the response from within BOI to his query in where the problem lies?

I have raised numerous basic SEPA data entry issues before and have not received satisfactory responses, apart from the time you had the mobile app developer on.   I know it is all outsourced and initially it was all BOI could do to keep the show on the road.  But still, the bank should at least acknowledge these small issues and give a rough guide line as to when they will be fixed rather than doing its best to not acknowledge the problems in the first place.

Hi Tow, 

It wasn't the tone of Bob24's response, but more so the tone of the response we had for Bob24, as explained in Bob 24's later reply.

Also Tow we appreciate any queries you have in connection to Sepa, and any further updates or changes we will let you know.

Thanks for the post.

Janette


 

Legislator

JTMan wrote: »

Hi Billy,

Can you please advise as to why this is not possible. 

There is a legal obligation on all SEPA county banks to offer SEPA direct debits. Why have BoI set up an incorrect character limit on IBAN fields?

Many thanks. 

BoI are not preventing payments being made to this IBAN, it appears that you cant setup a standing order to do so. Don't believe there are any legal implications    

Tow

Legislator wrote: »

BoI are not preventing payments being made to this IBAN, it appears that you cant setup a standing order to do so. Don't believe there are any legal implications    

I have sent the much the came query to the EPC, and will post their response, if any. I tried setting up a standing order to a Belgium account and was just told the IBAN was invalid. So the validation is checking for the country and is not just a field length issue. At the very least BOI should update the screen and errors messages to reflect this limitation.

On a side note Legislator. I am more concerned with our transactions being filtered by the American government. I see there are questions being raised in the Dail over this, but they are only addressing countries being blocked and not that transactions within the state to Irish citizens are also affected.

Bank of Ireland: Paula C

Hi JTMan,

Thank you for contacting us here on boards.ie

To clarify, we currently offer the automated Standing Order payment service for domestic transfers only. This automated payment is available between accounts in the Republic of Ireland only.
For non-domestic payments, customers can use the future dated payment facility, allowing payments to be made in the future on dates of your choosing.

We hope this clarifies this for you, if we can assist you with anything else please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thanks,
Paula C

Bob24

Legislator wrote: »

BoI are not preventing payments being made to this IBAN, it appears that you cant setup a standing order to do so. Don't believe there are any legal implications    

Yes you got it right - I am able to transfer money to that particular account as a once off payment with no problem. I wanted to setup a standing order as the amount to be transferred is the same every month, and a recurring payment is what is not supported while this is possible for domestic account.

Strange limitation though as i assume once off or scheduled makes no difference in terms of how the payment is sent to the SEPA infrastructure, which would support payments anywhere in the Eurozone.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Legislator

Fred Swanson wrote: »

It really is a lame response from the bank.  It would be interesting to see what the central bank and the regulator has to say.

Other banks are providing this service after all.

No legal obligation on any Bank to provide standing orders and CB and Regulator have no power to force a bank to do so.

Tow

Tow wrote: »

I have sent the much the came query to the EPC, and will post their response, if any.

Legal Counsel of the European Payments Council wrote:

Dear Mr T...,

Please be informed that no specific rules regarding standing orders are set out in the SEPA Regulation 260/2012 or similar legislation.

However, regarding credit transfers and direct debit transactions, Article 3 of the SEPA Regulation explicitly stipulates that

“1. A payee’s PSP [payment service provider] which is reachable for a national credit transfer under a payment scheme shall be reachable, in accordance with the rules of a Union-wide payment scheme, for credit transfers initiated by a payer through a PSP located in any Member State.

2. A payer’s PSP which is reachable for a national direct debit under a payment scheme shall be reachable, in accordance with the rules of a Union-wide payment scheme, for direct debits initiated by a payee through a PSP located in any Member State.”

Consequently, all payee payment accounts reachable for a national credit transfer should also be reachable via a Union-wide credit transfer scheme. All payers’ payment accounts reachable for a national direct debit should also be reachable via a Union-wide direct debit scheme. This should apply whether or not a PSP decides to participate in a particular credit transfer or direct debit scheme.

It is to be noted that the reachability obligation for direct debits was already established under Regulation (EC) No 924/2009.

You can consult the full text of the SEPA Regulation through the following link: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=dgp2TGnB1HzQRGh25XGzm5nlD5q1GXStfD8z1sfCXLWzqvTlgRkJ!55332993?uri=CELEX:32012R0260.

Nice to see quick reply from Europe, if only our national government agencies were as efficient.

Legislator

Tow wrote: »

Tow wrote: »

I have sent the much the came query to the EPC, and will post their response, if any.

Originally posted by Legal Counsel of the European Payments Council

Dear Mr T...,

Please be informed that no specific rules regarding standing orders are set out in the SEPA Regulation 260/2012 or similar legislation.

However, regarding credit transfers and direct debit transactions,  Article 3 of the SEPA Regulation explicitly stipulates that

“1. A payee’s PSP [payment service provider] which is reachable for a national credit transfer under a payment scheme shall be reachable, in accordance with the rules of a Union-wide payment scheme, for credit transfers initiated by a payer through a PSP located in any Member State.

2. A payer’s PSP which is reachable for a national direct debit under a payment scheme shall be reachable, in accordance with the rules of a Union-wide payment scheme, for direct debits initiated by a payee through a PSP located in any Member State.”

Consequently, all payee payment accounts reachable for a national credit transfer should also be reachable via a Union-wide credit transfer scheme. All payers’ payment accounts reachable for a national direct debit should also be reachable via a Union-wide direct debit scheme. This should apply whether or not a PSP decides to participate in a particular credit transfer or direct debit scheme.

It is to be noted that the reachability obligation for direct debits was already established under Regulation (EC) No 924/2009.

You can consult the full text of the SEPA Regulation through the following link: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=dgp2TGnB1HzQRGh25XGzm5nlD5q1GXStfD8z1sfCXLWzqvTlgRkJ!55332993?uri=CELEX:32012R0260.

Nice to see quick reply from Europe, if only our national government agencies were as efficient.

Exactly my point in my last post - no obligation under any regulation to offer standing orders.

Tow

Legislator wrote: »

Exactly my point in my last post - no obligation under any regulation to offer standing orders.

Still, I don't see any business reason not to offer the service. I can only assume their standing order system is not yet SEPA compliant and bank account details are being converted on the fly on input/output.

Bob24

Tow wrote: »

Still, I don't see any business reason not to offer the service. I can only assume their standing order system is not yet SEPA compliant and bank account details are being converted on the fly on input/output.

Either this or it is a way to protect their business by limiting banking integration in the Eurozone (if every money transfer service was working smoothly in any situation regardless of the country and the bank of the sender and recipient, one day banks with no presence in Ireland could come into the Irish market with better prices or services than what Irish banks are offering and "steal" their customers).

Legislator

Bob24 wrote: »

Tow wrote: »

Still, I don't see any business reason not to offer the service.  I can only assume their standing order system is not yet SEPA compliant and bank account details are being converted on the fly on input/output.

Either this or it is a way to protect their business by limiting banking integration in the Eurozone (if every money transfer service was working smoothly in any situation regardless of the country and the bank of the sender and recipient, one day banks with no presence in Ireland could come into the Irish market with better prices or services than what Irish banks are offering and "steal" their customers).

Many have come into the Irish market in the past and where are they now. Nothing to stop consumers opening accounts in Europe and using the SEPA schemes for payments.

Bob24

Legislator wrote: »

Many have come into the Irish market in the past and where are they now. Nothing to stop consumers opening accounts in Europe and using the SEPA schemes for payments.

But what I am saying is that the situation is different with SEPA and would be even more if all services where supported to SEPA accounts.

In the past a bank looking at offering Irish customers the same services as indigenous banks had to open irish operations, branches in Ireland, be regulated by the CBI, etc ... A lot of investment and risk.

If everything is fully integrated between European banks (which SEPA greatly helps with but doesn't fully achieve as this thread can attest), Irish banks are all a sudden facing competition from every single bank in the Eurozones (aside from having branches here and possibly of offering service in English) with no further investment required by any of these banks to offer the same set of service. These banks were not interested in taking the risk of establishing operations in Ireland as the return was not probably not sufficient in their view, some of them might now think that of Irish customers want to join and don't require much investment to manage - what not welcoming them.

Hence my point that by sticking to a minimal implementation of SEPA and keeping some services "Ireland only" - Irish banks can tell their customers that having a non Irish account will restrict them; and therefore protect their market.

Bob24

For reference, I have posted the full answer I got from the ECB/CBI on my other thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=91371944#post91371944

In summary the CBI replied that, in their view, while it might not be following the spirt of SEPA legislation BoI is correct in saying that there is no legal obligation for them to offer standing orders for SEPA accounts.

jnicolau

It's 2017 and still can't figure out how to make a standing order to other countries in the EU. Is there any other bank offering this very basic service?

Bob24

jnicolau wrote: »

It's 2017 and still can't figure out how to make a standing order to other countries in the EU. Is there any other bank offering this very basic service?

Double-check but I'm 99% sure PTSB lets you do it. I would be hopeful about KBC as they have pretty good mobile/internet banking but not sure as I don't have an account with them anymore. And If you don't need the bank to have physical presence in Ireland, N26 definitely offers the service as I am using it.

Bank of Ireland really seems behind in every way when it comes to internet/mobile banking and mobile payments and with no will to evolve while charging premium fees. I have dumped them since starting this threat and and at this stage I wonder why I put-up with them for so long (I am only talking about current accounts and payment cards, I don't have any personal experience to compare other services).

Tow

AIB are also SEPA complaint for standing orders.

jnicolau

Tow wrote: »

AIB are also SEPA complaint for standing orders.

Thank you for pointing out. I've tried and it worked for standing orders. The confusion lies on the fact the they don't allow to set international payees.

Poncke

4 years later and it is still not possible to set up a SO to an international SEPA account. And here I am, thinking SEPA would make things easier for us. 

Bob24

Poncke wrote: »

4 years later and it is still not possible to set up a SO to an international SEPA account. And here I am, thinking SEPA would make things easier for us. 

At this stage the only reasonable solution is to leave BOI to be honest. They are just stuck in time and refuse to evolve (not only related to SEPA SOs, they are also lacking with the general online/banking experience, they don’t support Apple/Android Pay, etc.)

I stoped using them for day to day banking 2-3 years ago and closed my last account with them last year after being a long time customer and have no interest in going back.

Poncke

Cheers Bob, I have been with BOI for 11 years, and I normally like being a loyal customer. Been with UPC/Virgin for over 20 years, with Bord Gais 11 years, etc. It is a hassle to switch, especially banks because so many things are set up to my BOI account. However, I just wish they would listen to their clients rather then just thinking about their bottom line. They owe us that much after bailing them out with 90 billion of tax payers money.