Bank State Branch - Format

Format

In both Australia and New Zealand, the format of the BSB code originally was for the first two digits to indicate the "bank" and the other four digits to specify the "branch" of that financial institution. In Australia, the major banks have at least historically structured their branch codes with the first of the four digit branch code indicating the state where the branch was located. Some of the larger banks have two bank codes. This is largely historic, a legacy from the time when banks maintained separate trading (cheque) and savings entities. The first digit of the bank code was either 0 (for trading bank accounts) or 1 (for savings bank accounts), with a common second digit. For example, 03 was for Westpac's trading accounts, while 73 was for Westpac's savings accounts. This distinction is now of only historic significance.

For example, the Australian BSB code "033088" breaks down to:

• 03 = Westpac Banking Corporation, historically the trading operation
• 3 = Victoria
• 088 = 383 Chapel Street, Prahran

Today, with the recognition of many new financial institutions in Australia, the structure of the BSB has had to be modified. While banks generally still follow the state branch structure, building societies and credit unions often do not. Many smaller financial institutions are now identified by the first three digits of the BSB with the "state" field being part of the "bank" identifier. Building societies and former ones start with 63xxxx and credit unions 80xxxx. The state code structure is not always used - e.g. Bendigo Bank which started as a building society in Victoria has code 633xxx, and the Queensland based Heritage Building Society has 638xxx. A financial institution may also use one centralised BSB for all accounts. Suncorp uses 484799 for all deposit accounts regardless of which branch or state the account was opened in. St George Bank does something similar to Suncorp.