Sort code

Sort codes are the domestic bank codes used to route money transfers between financial institutions in the United Kingdom, and formerly in 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 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 of Ireland. 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).

History

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]

Clearing bank code allocations

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

List of sort codes of the United Kingdom

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.

Cheque clearing

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.

England and Wales

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)
		09-01-31 to 09-01-36 09-01-39 to 09-01-49 for Alliance & Leicester 09-01-51 to 09-01-56 migrated accounts
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) 16-00-38 for Drummonds Bank, part of The Royal Bank of Scotland 16-52-21 for the Cumberland Building Society 16-57-10 for Cater Allen Private Bank, part of Santander Group
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	20-11-47 for HMRC 23-00-88 for VFX Financial 23-05-05 for Stripe 23-05-80 for Metro Bank 23-14-70 for Wise 23-22-21 for Fire Financial Services 23-32-72 for Pockit 23-59-54 for Newcastle Building Society 23-69-72 for Prepay Technologies 23-73-24 for Loot Financial Services
30 to 39	Lloyds Bank and TSB	Formerly Lloyds TSB (2013) and earlier for Lloyds Bank (1995) 30-00-66for Arbuthnot Latham Private Bank 30-00-83for Al Rayan Bank 30-02-48for FinecoBank UK
40 to 49	HSBC Bank	Formerly Midland Bank (1992) 49-99-79 to 49-99-99 for Deutsche Bank 40-12-50 to 40-12-55 for M&S Bank 40-47-58 to 40-47-87 for First Direct 40-51-78 for Jyske Bank Gibraltar 40-51-98 for Turkish Bank UK 40-60-80 for CashFlows 40-63-01 for the Coventry Building Society 40-63-77 for Cynergy Bank Limited 40-64-05 to 40-64-16 for Tesco Bank 40-64-25 for Virgin Money 40-64-37 for Marcus
50 to 59	NatWest	Formerly National Provincial Bank (1968)
60 to 66		Formerly Westminster Bank (1968) 60-01-73 for Reliance Bank Limited 60-83-12 for Atom Bank 60-83-14 for Gibraltar International Bank 60-83-66 for Fidor Bank UK 60-83-71 for Starling Bank 60-84-00 for Zopa 60-84-07 for Chase UK (JP Morgan)
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

04 codes

04 codes

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

Scotland

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)

Northern Ireland

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 of Ireland

Sort codes are no longer directly used in 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	93-09-03 for JP Morgan Bank Ireland plc 93-90-21 for EBS d.a.c.
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

Codes in the 70 range – "walks"

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]

International clearance

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:

• Germany/Austria: Bankleitzahl (BLZ) – superseded by and incorporated into the IBAN as part of SEPA standardization
• Switzerland: Bankenclearing-Nummer (BC-Nummer)
• Australia: Bank-State-Branch (BSB)
• Canada: Transit Code
• Sweden: Clearingnummer
• Ukraine: MFO
• India: IFSC (Indian Financial System Code)

The codes listed above for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden are incorporated into the IBANs for those countries.

See also

• List of banks in the United Kingdom
• Business Identifier Code, formerly Bank Identifier Code
• International Bank Account Number
• Industry Sorting Code Directory (UK)
• Bank state branch (Australia)

Sources

• UK Clearings Directory 2005 (p. 297) The Association for Payment Clearing Services

References

1. "Sort Code Information for Ireland". Irish Payment Services Organisation Ltd. Archived from the original on 18 April 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
2. "Martins Bank". www.martinsbank.co.uk.
3. "Six Digit NAICS Codes & Titles". NAICS Association. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
4. "Clearing Code Rules" (PDF). UK Sort Codes Information. February 2020.
5. Topham, Gwyn (17 July 2016). "Bank of England to close personal banking service for employees". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2016.
6. "Belfast Bankers' Clearing Company". Cheque and Credit Clearing Company.
7. "Banking & Payment Federation Ireland - About us - Payments". www.bpfi.ie. July 2018.
8. "Sort Code database". BPFI. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
9. "About BPFI". Banking and Payments Federation Ireland. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
10. Capie, Forrest; Webber, Alan (1985). A Monetary History of the United Kingdom: 1870-1982. Routledge. pp. 289–290. ISBN   04-15381150.
11. "IBAN registry - This registry provides detailed information about all ISO 13616-compliant national IBAN formats - Release 31, November 2011" (PDF). SWIFT. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2011.

1. Being phased out