History
Six-digit sort codes were introduced in a staggered process during the 1960s as the banking industry moved towards automation. Prior to this and to facilitate the manual processing of cheques branches were allocated a 'national code' which would comprise anything between three and five digits. These took the following form:
The bank itself would be allocated a main number; Lloyds Bank for example was allocated 3, National Provincial was allocated 5, Martins was allocated 11.
Main clearing branches (usually elite London branches) would bear only one digit after the main number, e.g. 11. Metropolitan branches (which covered Greater London) consisted of two digits after the main number, e.g. 11. Country branches made up the rest of the country, and bear three digits after the main number, e.g. 11. They were displayed on cheques in this fashion, with the bank identifier taking precedence.
To facilitate the move to a six-digit-structure the national codes were retained but where a single-digit was used to identify the bank a two-digit number was introduced, e.g. Barclays branches went from 2 to 20, Midland from 4 to 40, etc.
Read more about this topic: Sort Code
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)