Launch business accounts that feel native, wherever you operate

Swan provides local IBANs for France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Swan has local branches, local teams, local compliance operations, and direct regulator relationships in each hyperlocalized market:
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- France: Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR)
- Germany: Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin)
- Spain: Banco de España
- Netherlands: De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)
- Belgium: National Bank of Belgium
- Italy: Banca d’Italia

We're not routing transactions through one country, we're truly operating as a local embedded banking provider in France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.

Many providers offer virtual IBANs routed through a single country, even when the IBAN appears local. These act as technical identifiers forwarding funds to a master account. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has raised concerns about this model in three key areas:- Traceability: virtual IBANs rely on internal routing and pooled accounts. Swan issues real local IBANs, where each account is directly attributable and auditable.- Safeguarding: Swan operates under direct supervision by local regulators, with client funds safeguarded in accordance with EU requirements.- Transparency: Swan aligns the IBAN country, account location, and regulatory regime, eliminating ambiguity.While others optimize for virtual routing, Swan delivers real local IBANs built for regulatory clarity, trust, and long-term scale.

Business accounts with real local IBANs behave like domestic accounts in each country, while virtual IBANs are identifiers layered on top of a central main account. For example, think of a company that operates in Spain, but its main business account is issued in France. In such case:

- With virtual country IBANs, the company has one underlying FR account, plus a virtual IBAN that looks Spanish (starting with “ES”), but routes to that French account.
- Even though the IBAN appears local, the account itself is held abroad.

As a result, the Spanish company may still need to declare the account as a foreign bank account for reporting purposes, for example under Modelo 720, despite using an ES-looking IBAN.

See some of the differences between business accounts with local IBANs and virtual routing IBANs:

EU passporting allows financial institutions to offer services across Europe from a single licensed entity. However, passported setups often rely on centralized main accounts, which can affect how accounts behave for payments, reporting, and compliance. Beyond passporting, Swan invests in a hyperlocal strategy, issuing and operating local IBANs under each country’s frameworks to ensure the best user experience.

Yes. Real local IBANs behave like domestic accounts, so payers, suppliers, utilities, and tax authorities recognize and accept them more easily. Virtual IBANs, while functional, can sometimes trigger extra checks or rejected payments.

Virtual IBANs are suitable for payment reconciliation or tracking which customer sent which payment. Real local IBANs are needed when domestic account behavior, local business compliance, or multi-country scaling is required.

Swan provides the KYC and identity verification infrastructure, which you can brand and customize to match your platform's look and feel.