(8)In the vast majority of payment transactions in the Union, it is possible to identify a unique payment account using only IBAN without additionally specifying BIC. Reflecting this reality, banks in a number of Member States have already established a directory, database or other technical means to identify the BIC corresponding to a specific IBAN. BIC is required only in a very small, residual number of cases. It seems unjustified and excessively burdensome to oblige all payers and payees throughout the Union always to provide BIC in addition to IBAN for the small number of cases where this is currently necessary. A much simpler approach would be for PSPs and other parties to solve and eliminate those cases where a payment account cannot be identified unambiguously by a given IBAN. Therefore the necessary technical means should be developed to enable all users to identify unambiguously a payment account by IBAN alone.