Sort codes are the domestic
bank code
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 ban ...
s used to route money transfers between financial institutions in the United Kingdom, and 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 organisations and to identify accounts, while in the Republic of Ireland (a founder member of the
Euro
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
) they have been deprecated and replaced by the
SEPA systems and infrastructure.
Sort codes for Northern Ireland branches of banks (codes beginning with a '9') were registered with the
Irish Payment Services Organisation
The Irish Payment Services Organisation Limited (IPSO) was established in June 1997. IPSO was a company limited by guarantee owned by its member banks.
Its primary objective was to preserve the integrity and security of the bank payment syste ...
(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.
[
] Sort codes are encoded into
IBAN
IBAN or Iban or Ibán may refer to:
Banking
* International Bank Account Number
Ethnology
* Iban culture
* Iban language
* Iban people
Given name
Cycling
* Iban Iriondo (born 1984)
* Iban Mayo (born 1977)
* Iban Mayoz (born 1981)
Football
* ...
s but are not encoded into
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
Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail banking, retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four (banking), Big Four" clearing house (finance), clearing banks. Lloyds B ...
, 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. 11
1. Metropolitan branches (which covered Greater London) had two digits after the main number, e.g. 11
24. Country branches made up the rest of the country, and used three or more digits after the main number, e.g. 11
056. 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
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
codes went from starting with a 2 to 20,
Midland from 4 to 40, etc.
List of sort codes of the United Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
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
The Faster Payments Service (FPS) is a United Kingdom banking initiative to reduce payment times between different banks' customer accounts to typically a few seconds, from the three working days that transfers usually take using the long-estab ...
and
CHAPS
Chaps ( or ) are sturdy coverings for the legs consisting of leggings and a belt. They are buckled on over trousers with the chaps' integrated belt, but unlike trousers, they have no seat (the term "assless chaps" is a tautology) and are not jo ...
). Non-standard sort codes are issued to
payment service provider
A payment service provider (PSP) is a third-party company that assists businesses to accept electronic payments, such as credit cards and debit cards payments. PSPs act as intermediaries between those who make payments, i.e. consumers, and thos ...
s who need an
IBAN
IBAN or Iban or Ibán may refer to:
Banking
* International Bank Account Number
Ethnology
* Iban culture
* Iban language
* Iban people
Given name
Cycling
* Iban Iriondo (born 1984)
* Iban Mayo (born 1977)
* Iban Mayoz (born 1981)
Football
* ...
, 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
A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...
.
Scotland
Separately operated by the Committee of Scottish Clearing Bankers until 1985.
Northern Ireland
The clearing system in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
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. Sort codes in the 90 range are managed by the
Irish Payment Services Organisation
The Irish Payment Services Organisation Limited (IPSO) was established in June 1997. IPSO was a company limited by guarantee owned by its member banks.
Its primary objective was to preserve the integrity and security of the bank payment syste ...
(IPSO).
Sort codes of the Republic of Ireland
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
The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies ...
, 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
IBAN or Iban or Ibán may refer to:
Banking
* International Bank Account Number
Ethnology
* Iban culture
* Iban language
* Iban people
Given name
Cycling
* Iban Iriondo (born 1984)
* Iban Mayo (born 1977)
* Iban Mayoz (born 1981)
Football
* ...
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.
Historically, the Irish banking system shared the sort code structure used in the UK, but operated as a separate system since the
Irish pound
The pound (Irish: ) was the currency of the Republic of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or IR£ for distinction). The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin cir ...
broke the link with
sterling in March 1979. Codes are issued by the
Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) which replaced IPSO in 2014.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[
]
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.
[ 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
In Germany and Austria, the (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 (BC number) has the same ...
(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
* Banks of the United Kingdom
* Industry Sorting Code Directory The Industry Sorting Code Directory (ISCD) is the definitive list of bank branches and sub branches in the United Kingdom. The directory is maintained by VocaLink on behalf of UK Payments Administration (formally APACS).
The ISCD contains the sor ...
* Bank state branch
* Bank Identifier Code
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, ...
* International Bank Account Number
Sources
* ''UK Clearings Directory 2005'' (p. 297) The Association for Payment Clearing Services
References
External links
Clearing Codes Rules
– the rules for sorting codes, managed by Bacs
Faster Payments sort code checker
– shows which payment systems are supported for a given UK sort code
Identify a bank from the sort code
– display bank, branch and contact information
Find branch, clearing information and SWIFT BIC from a sort code
- shows branch details, clearing information and equivalent SWIFT BIC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sort Code
Banking terms
Bank codes
Banking in the United Kingdom
Banking in the Republic of Ireland