Looking to XML schema of pacs.008.001.07 that I found here: https://github.com/yudhik/example-iso-20022/blob/master/src/main/java/id/brainmaster/iso20022/model/

Looking to XML schema of pacs.008.001.07 that I found here: https://github.com/yudhik/example-iso-20022/blob/master/src/main/java/id/brainmaster/iso20022/model/pacs.008.001.07.xsd https://github.com/yudhik/example-iso-20022/blob/master/src/... . According to SWIFT, the account is defined by a combination of bank identifier and account identifier. That is, account identifiers are supposed to be unique only within the bank. (Not sure about this part.) There are many ways to identify an account, IBAN is one of them. Other methods require you to specify a "schema" (one of predefined codes 1-4 characters long), an "issuer" (string up to 35 chars), and "id" (string up to 34 chars). I suppose banks know the values that make sense for their customers, and otherwise just forward the information to other banks. IBAN is an alphanumeric string, where the first two characters are country code, and the meaning of the rest is country-specific. BIC is encoded in IBAN, so the information provided is redundant (in the payment you specify both the bank and the account, but the account also specifies the bank). . SEPA is a subset of SWIFT, with extra rules imposed. The currency is EUR, and the only allowed account identifier is IBAN. That means, SEPA requires IBAN, but you can also use IBAN outside of SEPA as one of many possible ways of identifying the account. For example, if I pay from EU to USA, I am using my IBAN account in a non-SEPA payment.