SummaryIn recent years, biobanks have evolved into professional infrastructures that acquire, validate, process, store, manage and distribute biological material of human origin to public or private end-users/researchers. This article (a) highlights the importance of quality assurance for both the biobank basic processes and sample annotation in order to ensure reliable results of research based on these samples, (b) suggests that certification according to international standards can contribute to the organization of the biobanking processes while accreditation can contribute to the organization of sample characterization/validation, and (c) provides a compilation of all existing