Triodos Bank postpones contactless payments via Apple Pay and Google Pay – Tablets and telephones – News

Traceable if you know the codes, not immediately readable as a name. It is still possible to let go of those traceable numbers and decide to make account numbers “portable”, just as was done with mobile phone numbers. This is technically possible with a name like INGB in the IBAN, but it will cause confusion anyway, but this is less the case with numbers.

You would say that, wouldn’t you? However, that is not going to work easily.
Within the SEPA zone, the IBAN is sufficient for transfers, but it is of course not practical if every bank in the EU has to (effectively) keep a list of account numbers for every bank in the EU. The bank code (whether letters or numbers) ensures that the order is sent to the correct bank .
Don’t forget that ‘branches’ can also be defined within the IBANs. As far as I know, this is not the case in the Netherlands and Belgium, but it is in France, for example.

A French IBAN is longer than a Dutch or Belgian IBAN and looks like this:

FRcc bbbb bfff ffrr rrrr rrrr rxx
FR = France
cc = control number
bbbb b = bank code (5 characters instead of 4 in the Netherlands or 3 in Belgium)
fff ff = Branch (usually groups of branches, 5 characters)
rr rrrr rrrr r = Account number (11 characters instead of 10 in the Netherlands, 7 in Belgium)
xx = Additional check digit (used within France. This is a Modulo 97 number and is then further processed.)

There are also shorter IBANs:

Norway for example:
NOcc bbbb rrrr rrx

(the last x is a Modulo-11 calculation)

In Belgium the last two characters are also a check digit.