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Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. In the UK we just need to share account number and sort code. These are quite easy to remember in your head. IBAN would complicate things. Is IBAN always required or only for cross-border transfers?

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An IBAN is just the sort code and account number, with a prefix, so would be just as easy to remember.

However, a sort code is always presented as 12-34-56 and the account number normally shown as 1234-5678 - so it's easily chunked and very easy to remember.

You also rarely need it among groups primarily using Monzo - which among my UK friend group is universal. Just pick from contacts, just like Apple Cash.

I've also found paying strangers on Monzo to be ridiculously easy, you both turn on bluetooth and go to "pay nearby" screen. You just ask them "Are you <full name>?" to verify, then send money.

While very true, I think the point is that if you come across someone not using Monzo as their bank it’s almost just as easy to send them money.

This varies by country, but e.g. in Finland IBANs completely replaced legacy numbers in 2010.

Mine is 5 characters longer than the legacy number was (added "FI", 2 check digits, 2 padding zeroes, removed dash), for a total of 18 characters.

You can use mobile phone numbers here too (though admittedly UK account numbers are easy enough most people just use those )

Some countries only use IBANs, without some other local account identifier.

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