Bank account – account number

Hi @cutu234

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the WooCommerce forum. I understand how frustrating it can be when an interface change makes a simple task harder to complete, especially when it impacts something as essential as your bank details. I appreciate you sharing your feedback about the new layout and how it affects your workflow.

Just to confirm, are you referring to the Direct Bank Transfer (BACS) payment method under WooCommerce > Settings > Payments? Also, may I ask which country you’re based in? You mentioned that account numbers are no longer used, and only IBAN and BIC apply — from what I know, those usually still derive from the account number, even if it’s not visible or used directly.

I’ve tested this on my end, and the settings appear as expected, so nothing unusual stood out. To better understand the layout you’re seeing and what may be causing the confusion, could you please share a screenshot using https://snipboard.io/? That’ll help us see exactly what you’re referring to.

Also, to assist you further, please share your System Status Report. You can get this from WooCommerce > Status > Get system report, then paste it on https://pastebin.com/ and send us the link.

We’ll be happy to take a closer look once we have that info. Let’s see how it goes!

Hi @cutu234,

Thank you for the clarification and for sharing the screenshots.

Regarding the UI change — I understand it might not look the way you expected, but the goal was to group all non-API (offline) payment methods together, which is why the layout was updated.

As for the bank account requirement: yes, WooCommerce currently requires an account number for BACS, and there’s no official workaround for skipping it. However, here’s a trick I personally use:

You can enter any placeholder or old account number in the Account Number field, then add the following CSS to hide it from the customer-facing order details page:

li.account_number {
    display: none !important;
}

To add this:

• Go to Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS, or
• Use a CSS section if you’re using a block editor theme

This will prevent the account number from being visible to customers while still allowing you to use the IBAN and BIC details.

Hi there!

I can understand your concern, Let me clarify this — yes, the bank account number will appear on the thank-you page, in the order details, and in the email sent to the customer after placing the order.

If you’d prefer not to display the account number in the email or on the thank-you page, some customization will be required. I can recommend WooExperts and Codeable.io as options for getting professional help. Alternatively, you can also ask your development questions in the  WooCommerce Community Slack as custom code falls outside our usual scope of support.

Also, you can submit a feature request here regarding making the “account number” field optional or not required. Our developers regularly review submissions and consider them for future updates:
👉 https://woocommerce.com/feature-requests/woocommerce/

Hi @cutu234, @nmavra, @stefangk,

Thank you again for your feedback and for continuing the discussion around this recent change. We’ve raised your concerns internally, and I now have an update to share based on that conversation.

At the moment, the account number field is required in the BACS payment method settings by default. We understand that in many regions like the EU, this field is no longer commonly used, especially when IBAN and BIC have fully replaced it and that this change has caused unnecessary friction.

Here are the current options available:

• If you’d like to remove or hide the account number field right away, this would require custom development. You can work with a developer or a trusted service like Codeable.io to customize the payment settings to fit your needs.
• If you’d prefer the field to be made optional in future WooCommerce releases, submitting and voting for a feature request is the best way to bring this to the attention of our development team: https://woocommerce.com/feature-requests/woocommerce/

The intent behind this update was to improve standardization and provide more structured guidance for users worldwide, but we fully understand that it may not work well for every store setup, especially where legacy fields like “account number” no longer apply.

We’ll continue to monitor this feedback and share it with the appropriate teams. Thanks again for voicing your concerns so clearly.