A Bank State Branch (often abbreviated and used in conversation as "BSB") is the name used in Australia and New Zealand for a bank code, which is a branch identifier. Both countries use an identifier consisting of a six digit numerical code that identifies an individual branch of an Australian and New Zealand financial institution. The BSB is normally used in association with the bank account number. (The structure of the BSB + account number does not permit for account numbers to be transferable between banks.) However, the New Zealand and Australian systems are only for use in domestic transactions and are incompatible with each other. For international transfers a SWIFT identifier is used in addition to the BSB identifier and a bank account number.
The use of the BSB identifier in association with bank account numbers was introduced in the early 1970s with the introduction of MICR on cheques to mechanise the process of data capture by the banks as well as for mechanical sorting and bundling of the physical cheques for forwarding to the payer bank branch for final cheque clearance. Since then the BSB code has been extended for use in electronic transactions, but is not used with financial card numbering.
In Australia, the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) is the regulatory body of cheque clearances and of the BSB codes in Australia. The BSB code consists of six numerals, the first two or three of which is a bank identifier. APCA assigns the bank code to a financial institution and the financial institution allocates the other digits to its branches, in line with guidelines set by APCA. Some financial institution have more than one bank identifier, arising from mergers or consolidating by banks of their trading and savings banks operations. As of March 2012, almost 14,300 unique BSB code values were in use.
Read more about Bank State Branch: Usage, Format, List of Australian Bank Codes, List of State Codes
Famous quotes containing the words bank, state and/or branch:
“Life is a long Dardenelles, My Dear Madam, the shores whereof are bright with flowers, which we want to pluck, but the bank is too high; & so we float on & on, hoping to come to a landing-place at lastbut swoop! we launch into the great sea! Yet the geographers say, even then we must not despair, because across the great sea, however desolate & vacant it may look, lie all Persia & the delicious lands roundabout Damascus.”
—Herman Melville (18191891)
“Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages. In a democracy it should be separated from the state just as churches are now separated from the state.”
—Paul Feyerabend (19241994)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (18181883)