Clarifying the Wrong BIC Situation

Hello everyone, although I am in the same situation as you (1300 EUR stuck because of the wrong BIC code) you do not have to blame Revolut for 100% of the guilt.
From my point of view the only mistake that Revolut made is that they didn’t send an email to all of their users saying that the BIC code changed and to be aware that banks might not verify this.
This whole ordeal proved that BANKS DO NOT CHECK THE BIC CODES OF THE TRANSACTIONS which they are required to do by LAW. The BIC code and so on is something between Revolut and your respective bank and it should not concern us. This proves that banks worldwide do a crap job and they don’t even check something as important as the correct BIC code and they just send your money without taking responsibility.

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I believe this is different. Because my bank did check the BIC. BICs are indeed still relevant for SEPA transfers. When a customer puts in an IBAN, the bank looks up the corresponding BIC in a database.

So what happened was that this database was messed up somehow. It let to the problem where banks would get a different BIC from the BIC that Revolut showed in the app as the correct BIC. The app shows REVOGB21. But the IBAN would resolve to REVOGB2L.*

The problem seems to be fixed for many customers that bank with bigger banks in the SEPA area, my bank again shows the same BIC as the app, the BIC that worked fine for months.

So either the database was messed up by mistake or Revolut’s banking partner (Lloyds?) wasn’t ready to accept SEPA payments to a deliberately changed BIC.

My guess is it was a mistake. Have you noticed that Lloyds’s BIC for the pooled accounts does end with 2L? I believe someone got confused by this. L / 1 are easy to mess up.

(* this is something users also saw with the pooled accounts a while ago. The difference here: even as the sender’s bank did deprive a different BIC, LOYDGBXX instead of LYDGB2L when I remember correctly, the money would still arrive. “XX” points to the bank itself, but “2L” to a specific branch.)

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Who has invented this sh**? Who can clearly say who messed this up? Who is publishing this data? You can enter correct BIC, but it is ignored and if the bank gets it wrong the customer has to pay for it? The banksters always win?

Well I clearly didn’t understand quite some parts here. What is correct BIC here now? 1 or L? is this thing resolved? If yes how?

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The correct BIC for SEPA is displayed in the app: REVOGB21

Looks like that Revolut change association of their IBAN from BIC REVOGB21 to REVOGB2L, but REVOGB2L is not registered as SEPA reachable, so because most banks have automated IBAN to BIC conversion, payments can’t reach Revolut accounts.

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I think you can use https://www.iban.com to check IBAN and lookup correct BIC code.

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In Europe mostly you don’t need BIC code any more to make a payment. Banks made IBAN to BIC transformation, but Revolut recetly messed up this association.

And Revolut gives a damn… still telling their users to enter/check the correct BIC…

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It’s like updating a DNS server. Changes need time to propagate. My bank is back to normal.

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Still having the same problem

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Which country and bank? During the past few weeks I did several SEPA payments from different banks to Revolut and all arrived.

Italy, Poste Italiane. I called them and sent email but they said that they can’t manually update BIC. Hope to fix by end of June or I have to stop to use Revolut

Still having the same problem

Still happening. Wow.

Further confirms that I will only ever use Revolut for simple transfers out. Never in. Never daily banking.

This happened two years ago and the BIC is the same now as it was back then after the change.