National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) on Tuesday urged customers to get their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) via any of the bank's various delivery channels.
Kuwait will become an IBAN compliant country on January 1, 2011.
Commenting, Deputy General Manager - Operations Group, Abdulla Abu Al-Hous said "it is strongly recommended to include IBANs as part of the payment instructions applicable to all incoming and outgoing (to IBAN compliant countries) payments.
This applies to all retail, as well as corporate customers, and will assist to speed up the processing of payments.
"Customers should update both local and international beneficiary details. IBAN details will also be required when establishing new standing orders from January 1, 2011 onwards" Abu Al-Hous noted.
He added that under the new system, no outgoing payments will be made to IBAN compliant countries such as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius, Turkey and other EU countries amongst others, as these payments will be immediately rejected by NBK if the payment instruction does not contain an IBAN.
This will eliminate these payments being rejected by the beneficiary bank resulting in delays for the customer.
"Including IBAN details in payment instructions will be an industry-wide requirement and will not only apply to NBK" Abu Al-Hous concluded, pointed out.