Monzo IBAN rejected for payments in Portugal

UK
1

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone here can shed some light on an issue I’ve now experienced multiple times when trying to use my Monzo UK account details in Portugal.

Over the past months I’ve attempted to set up several direct debits or recurring payments using my Monzo IBAN. Three separate attempts have failed. One of the recipients was BPI (Banco Português de Investimento), which simply could not set up the payment. As a test, I tried using a different UK bank account, and that one worked without any issues.

Because this has happened more than once, I pursued the possibility of IBAN discrimination with BPI and raised a complaint with the European Commission. Under SEPA rules, EU/EEA institutions must accept any valid IBAN from the SEPA area, regardless of the country of issue.

Monzo’s response was that the issue lies with the receiving bank.
BPI insists the issue is with Monzo.
Meanwhile, the Monzo app shows the error: “We cannot currently accept payments to the recipient.”

Today the problem happened again with a different Portuguese provider. They expected an IBAN with 4+21 (25 in total) digits, while Monzo’s UK IBAN has 22. This made me wonder whether the length mismatch might be causing some systems in Portugal to reject it.

For clarity:

  • A Portuguese IBAN has 25 characters (starting with PT50)

  • A UK IBAN has 22 characters (starting with GB)

  • Both follow the international IBAN standard, but the internal structure and length legitimately differ.

So my questions to the community (and hopefully the Monzo team) are:

  1. Is there a known issue with Portuguese banks or service providers rejecting Monzo IBANs due to format‑validation errors or outdated systems?

  2. Has Monzo identified any recurring problems with SEPA institutions in Portugal?

  3. Is the Monzo error message (“We cannot currently accept payments to the recipient”) related to this, or is it something else?

  4. Has anyone here successfully used a Monzo IBAN to set up standing orders or direct debits in Portugal?

This is becoming quite a blocker for everyday life here, and I’m trying to understand where the problem truly lies so I can escalate it properly.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Al

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2

I was under the assumption that IBAN is to be used for receiving payments, for sending payments, Monzo recommend using their Wise integration?

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3

It could be that a UK IBAN leads to an auto-reject for a SEPA direct debit. I had this with a couple of French direct debits (SANEF and Prixtel) which is why I use Wise for those now as it has a Belgian IBAN.

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