Hi there,

well, as a resident in Germany, AFAIK almost all German service providers (energy, water, Internet, even insurances) accept by default only German IBANs for automatic debit. I use my German bank for paying most of my bills, and my Bunq account for online shopping mostly. Maybe another German Bunqer could also confirm/deny that the Bunq-IBAN is accepted or rejected for automatic debit aka Lastschriftmandat?? But as mentioned here, EU companies should accept EU/EEA-IBANs for automatic debit, right?

They should indeed accept your IBAN. In reality some companies still have outdated systems where they won't be able to accept foreign IBANs as they may have a different lay-out (i.e. I believe the German IBAN has a number, where the Dutch IBAN has a bank name).

It's good to inform bunq when you run into a situation like this, so bunq can reach out to them.

That's right. Yeah, my German IBAN is only numbers plus the DE prefix. The Bunq-IBAN has numbers plus the BUNQ name and the NL prefix, and is also shorter than the IBANs of most major Banks. Also the "outdated systems" of most companies are expected to work with local Banks. German providers accept only German Bank accounts for automatic debit. I had a French pal whose French account (from a big Bank) was not accepted for automatic debit for a German phone contract, thus he was forced to open a German account. That may be the same case for Phillippe whose Dutch Bunq account would not be accepted by the Belgian provider

You are right, some German companies still don’t except IBAN from abroad. However, I made quite a good experience with direct debits to my bunq account. All companies finally accepted the bunq IBAN. However, you need to enlighten sone that they have to (by law). There are also companies that are already doing a good job:

German Telekom is a good example for a company that supports the Dutch IBAN out of the box.

Everyone having problems in Germany should also check this topic 🌈🇩:

https://together.bunq.com/topic/german-probleme-bei-sepa-iban-akzeptanz-sammelthema

I live in the Netherlands and I could get away with using only my italian bank account with no extra costs..except ns only accept payments from a certain range of bank for the purchase of seasonal tickets online -which is the only way to buy the season tickets-. I guess it is illegal otherwise it should be! nonetheless this the present we live in xD

At the website of NS you can buy tickets whiff Visa, MasterCard or iDeal, they don’t offer Incasso/Direct Debit for those.

If you want to take a seasonal ticket (abonnement) you need to give authorise your Incasso/Direct Debit by iDeal if you want to order it online, if you don’t have iDeal you can go to a ticket-desk or call Customer Service. You may need to sign for the Incasso/Direct Debit.

Hi,

I am experiencing the same problem in France. I cannot move my insurance standing order, (Allianz), my mobile phone, (Free), or my internet connection, (FreeBox), although the latter will except N26! However, other service providers accepted Bunq no problem, including our electricity supplier, (EDF), which I had thought would be the most difficult.

As far as I am aware, the refusal to accept a valid EU IBAN is a violation of current legislation as has been previously pointed out. I have written to both Free and Allianz asking them to explain their position and have had zero success so far, the most recent message from Allianz being that "we are looking at it and will contact you again shortly". That was a month ago.

Instead of trying to fight Free, (mobile), I tried to move my mobile phone contract, also with no success. Connected to the customer support centre of Red, (SFR), for example, when I asked them to explain why their web site would not accept a non French IBAN they simply hung up on me. Nice.

@Ismaro-Navy-Badger#17126 This depends. Most of the times you can call them; I did this and succesfully changed my IBAN for a Lastschriftmandat at 1&1