Why are there two different banks in different countries in this donation scheme?

Question

The National Bank of Ukraine has opened a special account to donate directly to Ukrainian armed forces. The official information is here. Their own bank account number is UA843000010000000047330992708, but that's obviously not an IBAN number. The details for donating in EUR currency are:

For EUR remittances:
BENEFICIARY: National Bank of Ukraine
BENEFICIARY BIC: NBUAUAUXXXX
IBAN DE05504000005040040066
PURPOSE OF PAYMENT: for crediting account 47330992708
BENEFICIARY BANK NAME: DEUTSCHE BUNDESBANK, Frankfurt
BENEFICIARY BANK BIC: MARKDEFF
BENEFICIARY BANK ADDRESS: Wilhelm-Epstein-Strasse 14, 60431 Frankfurt Am Main, Germany

And this is where I'm getting confused. Why is some German bank involved here? And the IBAN number is also German. Would the money sent to DE05504000005040040066 go to the NBU or not? Or would it, like, go to NBU, but only after 3 months clearance and 27 different taxes or whatever?

I'm certain this is the right information and not a scam. I've checked and double-checked and it's the official channel and other trustworthy sources point to it.

I just don't understand how this works and how to transfer the money promptly and properly.

Answer 1

Their own bank account number is UA843000010000000047330992708, but that's obviously not an IBAN number.

It appears to be a valid Ukrainian IBAN number. It checks out to be syntactically correct according to this IBAN checker.

Different countries have different format for IBANs. The first two letters state the country of the bank account. The next two characters are the checksum. The number of digits that follow and their exact meaning vary from country to country. You can find a list on Wikipedia. The format for Ukrainian IBANs is:

UAkkbbbbbbccccccccccccccccccc

where:

• "UA" stands for Ukraine
• kk is the checksum
• bbbbbb is the bank number
• ccccccccccccccccccc is the account number at that bank

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The additional information "For EUR remittances" in the donation call is relevant when you don't want to perform a regular international bank "transfer" but an international bank "remittance" instead. Which can sometimes have advantages but also disadvantage for international money transfers in different currencies.

More about this in this article.

Answer 2

Both commercial and central banks can and do in fact have accounts at other commercial and central banks. In fact they almost always have to have accounts somewhere else for their foreign currency reserves or legally required deposits. A number in their own computer system is not exactly trustworthy.

Would the money sent to [a German IBAN] go to the NBU or not?

Assuming the source where you get the account information is trustworthy, NBU is the direct beneficiary of the money and if it is in fact an account controlled by NBU it can of course spend the money (e.g. carry out or act as guarantor purchases of supplies from European companies in EUR).

Why is some German bank involved here? And the IBAN number is also German.

If Ukraine wants to do anything in Euro with European companies an European bank almost always has to be involved. However, this does not require a public EUR account to receive donations.

One of the reasons is that Ukraine is not in the Single Euro Payments Area, in which all transfers done in EUR must be free of charge or intermediary fees and must arrive and clear within a given timeframe.

Or would it, like, go to NBU, but only after 3 months clearance and 27 different taxes or whatever?

This exactly what having an account in SEPA avoids; your Euro payment will be directly deposited onto the account.

Answer 3

Is it possible it works this way? Maybe. Getting funds directly to the people who need it won't be straight forward.

But even if it does work as you describe, do you trust the organization telling you this? Do you believe they will send the money? Do you trust that they themselves are not being scammed?

Whenever there are major crisis people want to help. But how do you know that your money is going someplace useful? Sometimes people want to help, so they pick the first thing that they sort of recognize, but don't do the due diligence.