IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number.

IBAN makes money transfers within the euro zone very easy, just like transferring money to your neighbour. EU has also mandated that the charges must be the same for domestic and across the border (euro-zone) transfers -- in many countries they are free. So for example I can transfer money from Finland to Italy for free, directly from an account to an account from my online bank service.

IBAN is designed to include all the routing information and thus should work without any other codes (SWIFT, ...).