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Wrong IBAN, Wrong Name: How Small Payment Mistakes Turn Into Returned Transfers

2026-10-13

Two people pointing at the figures on an invoice, checking payment details before a transfer is sent

The Payment That Comes Back a Week Later

You pay a new supplier, the money leaves your account, and you move on. A week later the supplier writes to ask where the payment is. Then the money turns up again on your side, a little lighter than when it left, with a note that the beneficiary details didn't match.

Returned transfers rarely come from anything dramatic. Usually it's one field: an old IBAN copied from a previous invoice, the brand name typed in where the legal name should be, a SWIFT payment missing a bank code the receiving country needs. The payment did exactly what it was told. It just couldn't reach the right account.

Below are the details that cause most returns, what has changed with the EU's name check, and what a returned payment costs on a Polydirection account.

The Details That Actually Matter

For a SEPA transfer in euros, two things do most of the work: the IBAN and the beneficiary's name. For a SWIFT payment the list is longer.

The reference field rarely causes a return by itself. But a clear one, such as the invoice number and your company name, is what lets the other side match the money when it arrives. A payment nobody can match tends to turn into a week of emails.

Why the Name Matters More Than It Used To

For years, many banks receiving euro transfers didn't compare the name on the payment with the name on the account. The IBAN did the routing, and a mismatched name often went through.

That has changed. Under the EU's Instant Payments Regulation, banks in the euro area have had to offer Verification of Payee since 9 October 2025. Before a euro transfer is sent, the name you entered is checked against the account behind the IBAN, and you get one of a few answers: a match, a close match (often with the correct name suggested), no match, or a note that the check wasn't possible. You can still send after a warning, but you do it knowing the name doesn't line up.

Two caveats. Not every provider is on the same timetable: payment and e-money institutions, and countries outside the euro area, have deadlines running into 2027, so you won't see the check on every transfer yet. And it covers euro transfers within SEPA only. SWIFT payments to the rest of the world don't get this check, so there the details are entirely on you.

The practical takeaway is simple. Take the exact legal name from the supplier's invoice or contract, not from memory or their website.

SEPA and SWIFT Fail Differently

A SEPA payment with bad details usually fails fast. Either it's rejected before it leaves, or the receiving bank sends it back within a few working days. It's euros in and euros out, so nothing gets converted along the way.

SWIFT returns are slower and messier. A payment can pass through one or more correspondent banks before reaching the beneficiary's bank, and if it's rejected there, it travels back the same way. That can take days, sometimes longer. Polydirection's fee page notes that "in some cases, intermediary bank fees may be charged," and on a returned payment such fees can be taken on the way out and again on the way back. If the money was converted into another currency, it may be converted back at a different rate. So what comes home can be less than what you sent, before any return fee.

What a Return Costs on a Polydirection Account

Polydirection's public fee schedule lists a payment reversal/return fee of 65 EUR. For scale: an outgoing SEPA transfer on a Personal EU account costs 3 EUR, so one returned payment costs more than twenty ordinary ones. As the fee page says, final tariffs are negotiable and can vary from case to case.

The schedule doesn't spell out every scenario that triggers this fee. If a payment of yours comes back, ask your manager how it will be charged rather than guessing.

Two smaller lines on the same page are worth knowing here:

Changed Bank Details: The Mistake That Isn't Yours

One kind of "wrong details" isn't a typo at all. A message arrives, apparently from a supplier, saying their bank account has changed and asking you to pay the next invoice to a new IBAN. Sometimes it's genuine. Sometimes the supplier's email has been hacked or imitated, and the new account belongs to someone else.

This one doesn't end in a return. The details are valid, the payment arrives, and it arrives in the wrong hands. Getting that money back is hard and often impossible.

The defence is old-fashioned. When bank details change, confirm by phone on a number you already had, not one taken from the email announcing the change. A name check may flag a mismatch, but don't rely on it, and on SWIFT payments it isn't there at all.

A Checklist for the First Payment to Someone New