Sort codes are the domestic bank codes used to route money transfers between financial institutions in the United Kingdom, and formerly in the Republic of Ireland. They are six-digit hierarchical numerical addresses that specify clearing banks, clearing systems, regions, large financial institutions, groups of financial institutions and ultimately resolve to individual branches. In the UK they continue to be used to route transactions domestically within clearance organizations and to identify accounts, while in the Republic of Ireland (a founder member of the Euro) they have been deprecated and replaced by the Single European Payment Area (SEPA) systems and infrastructure.
Sort codes for Northern Ireland branches of banks (codes beginning with a '9') were registered with the Irish Payment Services Organization (IPSO) for both Northern Ireland and the Republic. These codes are used in the British clearing system and historically in the Irish system.
The sort code is usually formatted as three pairs of numbers, for example 12-34-56. It identifies both the bank (in the first digit or the first two digits) and the branch where the account is held. [1] Sort codes are encoded into International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs) but are not encoded into Business Identifier Codes (BICs).
Codes began to be used in the early 20th century to facilitate the manual processing of cheques. Known as a 'national code', these had between three and five digits.
The eleven London clearing banks were each allocated a main number, with the "big five" (and the Bank of England) allocated single-digit numbers alphabetically. Lloyds Bank, for example, was allocated 3 and National Provincial was allocated 5. The remaining single digit codes were used to indicate that a cheque was from outside the London clearing system. The smaller clearing banks were allocated two-digit numbers, for example Martins was allocated 11.
The bank branches were allocated further digits by their bank to make up the entire number; some banks represented these on cheques in smaller type. Main clearing branches (usually major London branches) would have only one digit after the main number, e.g. 111. Metropolitan branches (which covered Greater London) had two digits after the main number, e.g. 1124. Country branches made up the rest of the country, and used three or more digits after the main number, e.g. 11056. [2] They were displayed on cheques in this fashion, with the bank identifier taking precedence.
Six-digit "sorting codes" were introduced in a staggered process from 1957 as the banking industry moved towards automation. The national codes were retained but where a single digit was used to identify the bank a two-digit range was introduced. So, for example, Barclays codes went from starting with a 2 to 20, Midland from 4 to 40, etc. [3]
Code | Bank |
---|---|
1 | Bank of England |
2 | Barclays |
3 | Lloyds Bank |
4 | Midland Bank |
5 | National Provincial |
6 | Westminster Bank |
7 | Walks |
8 | Scottish clearing |
9 | Irish clearing |
11 | Martins Bank |
15 | Glyn, Mills & Company |
16 | Williams Deacon's Bank |
17 | National Bank |
18 | Coutts |
This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2010) |
In the United Kingdom the initial digits of bank sort codes were originally allocated to settlement members of the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company and the Belfast Bankers' Clearing Company. Today, sort codes are issued to any organisation that will be a direct member of a UK electronic payment network (in addition to the cheque clearing systems, this includes BACS, Faster Payments and CHAPS). Non-standard sort codes are issued to payment service providers who need an IBAN, for example for SEPA, as the sort code forms part of this.
The allocation of sort codes is managed by BACS. These numbers are six digits long, formatted into three pairs which are separated by hyphens.
The cheque clearing system in the United Kingdom is managed by Pay.UK, following the merger of the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company, BACS and Faster Payments Ltd in 2018. Since August 2019, sterling cheque clearing has been through the Image Clearing System.
In the following list the dates in parentheses give the year of merger with the present-day sort code holder, or its subsidiary.
Range | Bank | Note |
---|---|---|
00 | For IBAN use only [4] | |
01 | NatWest | Formerly District Bank (1962) |
04 | "Utility bank" | 04 is used by a large number of new financial institutions. Issued to new participants in the BACS, CHAPS and Faster Payments schemes. Not usable for cheques. [4] See next table. |
05 | Clydesdale Bank | Trading as Yorkshire Bank |
07-00 to 07-49 | Nationwide Building Society | |
08 | The Co-operative Bank | |
08-60 to 08-61 | For building societies [nb 1] 08-60-64 for Virgin Money (ex Northern Rock accounts) | |
08-90 to 08-99 | ||
08-30 to 08-39 | Citibank | 08-31 to 08-32 for UK Government banking (NS&I, HMRC etc.) |
09-00 to 09-19 | Santander UK | Formerly Abbey National (2010) |
| ||
10-00 to 10-79 | Bank of England | Previously used for government banking and BoE employee accounts [5] |
11 | Bank of Scotland | For Halifax (since 1990), earlier used by Martins Bank (1962-1969) |
12-00 to 12-69 | For Sainsbury's Bank | |
13 | Barclays | |
14 | ||
15 | Royal Bank of Scotland | Formerly Williams & Glyn's Bank (1985), itself formerly Glyn, Mills & Company (1970) |
15-80 | For Child & Company private bank, part of The Royal Bank of Scotland (1923) | |
15-98 to 15-99 | For C. Hoare & Co, independent private bank | |
16 | Royal Bank of Scotland | Formerly Williams & Glyn's Bank (1985), itself formerly Williams Deacon's Bank (1970)
|
17 | Formerly Williams & Glyn's Bank (1985), itself formerly The National Bank (1970) | |
18 | For Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest (1920) | |
19 | ||
20 to 29 | Barclays |
|
30 to 39 | Lloyds Bank and TSB | Formerly Lloyds TSB (2013) and earlier for Lloyds Bank (1995)
|
40 to 49 | HSBC Bank | Formerly Midland Bank (1992)
|
50 to 59 | NatWest | Formerly National Provincial Bank (1968) |
60 to 66 | Formerly Westminster Bank (1968)
| |
70 | Used by various international banks for their UK business: no longer issued. [4] | Banks including: Bank of Baroda National Bank of Pakistan Close Brothers Group Bank Hapoalim |
71 | Bank of England | National Savings Bank |
72 [nb 1] | Santander UK | Formerly Alliance & Leicester (2010), itself formerly Girobank (1985) |
77-00 to 77-44 | Lloyds Bank and TSB | Formerly Lloyds TSB (2013) and earlier for Trustee Savings Bank (1995) |
77-46 to 77-99 |
Range | Bank | Note |
---|---|---|
04-00-02 | BFC Bank | |
04-00-03 to 04-00-08 | Monzo | |
04-00-11 | Satabank | |
04-00-40 | Starling Bank | |
04-00-53 | Payrnet/Railsbank | |
04-00-72 to 04-00-74 | Modulr | |
04-00-75 & 04-29-09 | Revolut | |
04-00-76 | LCH Limited | |
04-00-78 | Elavon Financial Services | |
04-00-79 to 04-00-80 | Virgin Money Head Office | |
04-03-00 to 04-03-29 | LHV Pank | |
04-03-33 | Mettle by NatWest | |
04-04-05 | ClearBank | |
04-04-76 to 04-04-77 | Enumis | |
04-05-40 to 04-05-41 | BCB Group | |
04-06-05 | Tide (financial service) by ClearBank | |
04-13-01 | Midpoint & Transfer | |
04-13-02 to 04-13-03 | Bilderlings Pay | |
04-13-04 to 04-13-05 | Ecology Building Society | |
04-13-06 | Allpay Limited | |
04-13-07 to 04-13-08 | Clear Junction | |
04-13-12 | Modulr | |
04-13-13 to 04-13-14 | Project Imagine | |
04-13-15 to 04-13-16 | Universal Securities & Investment | |
04-13-17 to 04-13-19 | Contis Financial Services | |
04-13-42 | Duesday | |
04-29-09 | Revolut | |
04-36-14 to 04-36-23 | Griffin Bank |
Separately operated by the Committee of Scottish Clearing Bankers until 1985.
Range | Bank | Note |
---|---|---|
80 to 81 | Bank of Scotland | |
82 | Clydesdale Bank | |
83 | Royal Bank of Scotland | formerly National Commercial Bank of Scotland (1969), formerly Commercial Bank of Scotland (1959) |
84 | formerly National Commercial Bank of Scotland (1969), formerly National Bank of Scotland (1959) | |
86 | ||
87 | TSB | formerly Lloyds TSB Scotland (2013) formerly TSB Scotland (1995) |
89-00 to 89-29 | Santander UK | formerly Alliance & Leicester (2010) formerly Girobank (2003) |
The clearing system in Northern Ireland was operated under the Belfast Clearing Rules which were agreed by the Belfast Bankers' Clearing Company (formerly the Belfast Bankers' Clearing Committee), until the introduction of the Image Clearing System managed by Pay.UK which was completed in August 2019. [6] Sort codes in the 90 range are managed by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (former Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO)).
Range | Bank | Note |
---|---|---|
90 | Bank of Ireland | |
91 | Danske Bank | formerly Northern Bank (2012) formerly Belfast Banking Company (1970) |
93 | Allied Irish Banks (UK) | for AIB (Northern Ireland) formerly First Trust Bank formerly TSB Northern Ireland (1991) |
94 | Bank of Ireland | |
95 | Danske Bank | formerly Northern Bank (2012) former Midland Bank subsidiary (1965) |
98 | Ulster Bank | subsidiary of NatWest (1917) |
Sort codes are no longer directly used in the Republic of Ireland, although they still form part of the underlying structure of account numbers. As a part of the Eurozone, all aspects of the SEPA system are fully implemented and adhered to. This means that all domestic transactions, including Direct Debit and interbank transfers, are processed using an IBAN through the SEPA system. The Irish electronic clearing systems, including those run by the Irish Retail Electronic Payments Clearing Company Ltd, which entered voluntary liquidation in late 2014, have been retired and replaced by SEPA. Domestic cheques continue to be processed by the Irish Paper Clearing Company CLG. [7]
Historically, the Irish banking system shared the sort code structure used in the UK, but operated as a separate system since the Irish pound broke the link with sterling in March 1979. Codes are issued by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) [8] which replaced IPSO in 2014. [9]
The full list of sort codes used in Ireland is as follows:
Note: A large number of lower volume users and smaller banks share the 99 XX XX code and there are at least three users of the 93 XX XX codes assigned primarily to AIB.
Range | Bank | Note |
---|---|---|
90 | Bank of Ireland | |
92 | Central Bank of Ireland | |
93 | AIB Bank |
|
95 | Danske Bank (Ireland) | trading as Danske Bank |
98 [nb 1] | Ulster Bank Ireland dac | |
99-06 to 99-07 | Permanent TSB |
99
is used by a large number of financial institutions, particularly those with smaller branch networks or a single branch:
Range | Bank | Note |
---|---|---|
99-00-51 to 99-00-52 | Citibank Europe plc | |
99-00-61 to 99-00-62 | Bank of America Realex Financial Services | |
99-02-04 | Royal Bank of Scotland | |
99-02-06 | BNP Paribas Ireland | |
99-02-12 | Barclays Bank Ireland | |
99-02-31 | HSBC Bank | |
99-02-40 | ING Bank | |
99-02-60 | Rabobank International | |
99-02-70 | KBC Bank Ireland | |
99-03-01 | An Post | |
99-03-20 | for Aareal Bank | |
99-03-25 | for CACEIS Bank | |
99-03-60 | for Revolut Bank UAB | |
99-04 | Bank of Scotland | |
99-10 | BNP Paribas Ireland for Irish Credit Unions | |
99-11-99 | Fire Financial Services | |
99-21 to 99-22 | Irish Credit Unions | |
99-99-01 | Central Bank of Ireland for the Paymaster General of Ireland Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) |
Irish bank account numbers are now presented in the IBAN format as follows:
IE97 BANK 9799 9912 3456 78
This corresponds to the fictitious sort code: 97-99-99 and account: 12345678, prefixed by ISO Country code: IE, IBAN check digits 97 and Bank Identifier: BANK
Numbers starting with a '7' (after the 1960s, '70') were reserved for the large number of London offices of banks which were not members of the London Clearing. Individual sort codes were allocated on a one-off basis to the many London offices of private and foreign banks. Cheques drawn on these banks were colloquially known within the banking industry as 'walks' because they were cleared by being hand-delivered ("walked") to the drawee banks by messengers from the Clearing House. [10] By the 1990s, most of these banks had been issued with sort codes within the ranges of the various clearing banks which, from then on, acted as clearing agents for them; the practice of "walking" cheques was ended. For cheques drawn on banks that had not made such an arrangement, the cheques were posted to the drawee bank, who would settle them by a cheque drawn on a clearing bank. [10]
Within the Eurozone, only IBAN numbers are required. Transfers to and from the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia and any other countries outside the Eurozone continue to use international networks and require a combination of IBAN (or a domestic account and sorting/routing code) alongside a BIC code to identify the institution sending and receiving payments. Characters 9 to 14 of British and Irish IBANs hold the bank account sort code. [11]
In some countries there is no direct equivalent of sort codes as the bank and branch codes are maintained separately from each other in those countries. [11] Other countries, however, have or had codes which are equivalent to sort codes, but with formats unique to the country concerned. Examples include:
The codes listed above for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden are incorporated into the IBANs for those countries.
The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an internationally agreed upon system of identifying bank accounts across national borders to facilitate the communication and processing of cross border transactions with a reduced risk of transcription errors. An IBAN uniquely identifies the account of a customer at a financial institution. It was originally adopted by the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS) and since 1997 as the international standard ISO 13616 under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The current version is ISO 13616:2020, which indicates the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) as the formal registrar. Initially developed to facilitate payments within the European Union, it has been implemented by most European countries and numerous countries in other parts of the world, mainly in the Middle East and the Caribbean. By July 2024, 88 countries were using the IBAN numbering system.
ISO 9362 is an international standard for Business Identifier Codes (BIC), a unique identifier for business institutions, approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). BIC is also known as SWIFT-BIC, SWIFT ID, or SWIFT code, after the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is designated by ISO as the BIC registration authority. BIC was defined originally as Bank Identifier Code and is most often assigned to financial organizations; when it is assigned to non-financial organization, the code may also be known as Business Entity Identifier (BEI). These codes are used when transferring money between banks, particularly for international wire transfers, and also for the exchange of other messages between banks. The codes can sometimes be found on account statements.
Magnetic ink character recognition code, known in short as MICR code, is a character recognition technology used mainly by the banking industry to streamline the processing and clearance of cheques and other documents. MICR encoding, called the MICR line, is at the bottom of cheques and other vouchers and typically includes the document-type indicator, bank code, bank account number, cheque number, cheque amount, and a control indicator. The format for the bank code and bank account number is country-specific.
Cheque clearing or bank clearance is the process of moving cash from the bank on which a cheque is drawn to the bank in which it was deposited, usually accompanied by the movement of the cheque to the paying bank, either in the traditional physical paper form or digitally under a cheque truncation system. This process is called the clearing cycle and normally results in a credit to the account at the bank of deposit, and an equivalent debit to the account at the bank on which it was drawn, with a corresponding adjustment of accounts of the banks themselves. If there are not enough funds in the account when the cheque arrived at the issuing bank, the cheque would be returned as a dishonoured cheque marked as non-sufficient funds.
In the United States, an ABA routing transit number is a nine-digit code printed on the bottom of checks to identify the financial institution on which it was drawn. The American Bankers Association (ABA) developed the system in 1910 to facilitate the sorting, bundling, and delivering of paper checks to the drawer's bank for debit to the drawer's account.
Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash office.
A giro transfer, often shortened to giro, is a payment transfer between current bank accounts and initiated by the payer, not the payee. The debit card has a similar model. Giros are primarily used in Europe; although electronic payment systems exist in the United States, it is not possible to perform third-party transfers with them. In the European Union, the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) allows electronic giro or debit card payments in euros to be executed to any euro bank account in the area.
A cheque is a document that orders a bank, building society to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account where the money is held. The drawer writes various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay the amount of money stated to the payee.
A Bank State Branch is the name used in Australia for a bank code, which is a branch identifier. The BSB is normally used in association with the account number system used by each financial institution. The structure of the BSB + account number does not permit for account numbers to be transferable between financial institutions. While similar in structure, the New Zealand and Australian systems are only used in domestic transactions and are incompatible with each other. For international transfers, a SWIFT code is used in addition to the BSB and account number.
The Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS) is a real-time gross settlement payment system used for sterling transactions in the United Kingdom.
A direct debit or direct withdrawal is a financial transaction in which one organisation withdraws funds from a payer's bank account. Formally, the organisation that calls for the funds instructs their bank to collect an amount directly from another's bank account designated by the payer and pay those funds into a bank account designated by the payee. Before the payer's banker will allow the transaction to take place, the payer must have advised the bank that they have authorized the payee to directly draw the funds. It is also called pre-authorized debit (PAD) or pre-authorized payment (PAP). After the authorities are set up, the direct debit transactions are usually processed electronically.
A bank code is a code assigned by a central bank, a bank supervisory body or a Bankers Association in a country to all its licensed member banks or financial institutions. The rules vary to a great extent between the countries. Also the name of bank codes varies. In some countries the bank codes can be viewed over the internet, but mostly in the local language.
In Germany and Austria, the Bankleitzahl (BLZ) is a code that uniquely identifies a bank. The bank code always consists of eight digits in Germany and five digits in Austria. In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the bank clearing number has the same meaning. The bank sort code must be specified for many business transactions in payment transactions.
The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a payment integration initiative of the European Union for simplification of bank transfers denominated in euros. As of 2020, there were 36 members in SEPA, consisting of the 27 member states of the European Union, the four member states of the European Free Trade Association, and the United Kingdom. Some microstates participate in the technical schemes: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City.
The Cheque and Credit Clearing Company Limited (C&CCC) is a UK membership-based industry body whose 11 members are the UK clearing banks. The company has managed the cheque clearing system in England and Wales since 1985, in all of Great Britain since 1996 when it took over responsibility for managing the Scottish cheque clearing as well, and in the whole of the United Kingdom since the introduction of the Image Clearing System in 2019. It has been a subsidiary of Pay.UK since 2018.
Santander UK plc is a British bank, wholly owned by Banco Santander, a Spanish bank. Santander UK plc manages its affairs autonomously, with its own local management team, responsible solely for its performance.
The Irish Payment Services Organisation Limited (IPSO) was established in June 1997. IPSO was a company limited by guarantee owned by its member banks.
New Zealand bank account numbers in NZD follow a standardised format of 16 digits:
EBA Clearing is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure wholly owned by shareholders that consist of major European banks. It derives its name from the Euro Banking Association which was instrumental in its establishment in June 1998, but has always been a separate organization.
A routing number is the term for bank codes in Canada. Routing numbers consist of eight numerical digits with a dash between the fifth and sixth digit for paper financial documents encoded with magnetic ink character recognition and nine numerical digits without dashes for electronic funds transfers. Routing numbers are regulated by Payments Canada, formerly known as the Canadian Payments Association, to allow easy identification of the branch location and financial institution associated with an account.