National Police warns: do not withdraw money if you see this when you arrive at the ATM.
Current regulations establish that banking entities must execute the transfer attending only to the unique identifier: the IBAN. This implies that if the customer makes a mistake when entering the account, their entity must initiate procedures with the receiving bank to recover the funds. The body itself details: «Once we give the order to send money to the bank, said order cannot be left without effect and the amounts paid into the beneficiary account cannot be reversed by our entity without the consent of the beneficiary or the mandatory judicial order».
In these situations, the entities will not assume responsibility if the funds end up in an account other than the desired one, as the user has indicated an incorrect identifier. Therefore, the return depends on the person who received the money giving their authorization.
The speed with which these operations are carried out facilitates their use, but also increases the risk of errors. That is why many wonder what happens when money is sent to the wrong account and the entity does not detect the error. According to data from the Bank of Spain, transfers grew by 15.5% to reach 1,416 million operations, with a total volume of 5.4 trillion euros.
Transfers are irrevocable The Bank of Spain reminds that transfers are «irrevocable» orders, which means they cannot be canceled once issued. As the body explains: «The immediacy of operating has great advantages, but it is very important not to lose sight of that transfers are irrevocable payment orders».
Sometimes the account number is entered manually; in other cases, previous transfers are reused or a list of saved accounts is used, which can cause confusion if the IBAN of a specific recipient is kept.
Irrevocable Transfers The Bank of Spain reminds that transfers are «irrevocable» orders, which means they cannot be canceled once issued. As lawyer Clara Carrera Soler, from AGM Abogados, points out, article 59 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018 determines that «when a payment order is executed in accordance with the unique identifier, it will be considered correctly executed in relation to the beneficiary specified in said identifier».
The lawyer adds that the regulation does not require verifying additional data such as the recipient's name, the concept or the address. Even so, some courts have begun to interpret the regulation from a more perspective adapted to social reality, attending to the increase in fraud and errors in these operations.
To reinforce the security and confidence in euro bank transfers, both ordinary and instant, payment service providers must offer a free beneficiary verification system. Since October 9, this tool allows you to check if the name indicated by the sender matches the holder of the destination account, thus reducing the risk of errors and possible frauds.
The procedure is simple. The response can yield four results: total match, partial match — in which case the name registered in the destination account is shown — no match or impossibility to verify the information. Therefore, if the result of the verification is «non-matching» or «almost matching» and the sender chooses to proceed, the money will be sent to the entered IBAN anyway.
