101-Bank Access

Most of us will think of BACS when looking for information on banking system information. While not the only system for interacting with banks, it is one of the main ones, and it's recources links are the best place to start for accurate current information. The Little BCACS Book is a useful starting guide to both Direct Debit and Direct Payment althoguh this is not the only system for handling these. BACS along with other services uses the Extended Industry Sort Code Directory (EISCD) as the database of valid account numbers, and this service is provided t the industry by Vocalink. Interestingly although they advertise themselves as providing 'world-class payment systems', a click on the link to check how they set up the Direct Debit to license the database gives a PDF document to download and fill in manually!

BACS does not itself seem to prvide links to a EISCD checking service, simply directing users to the Sort Code checker at paymentsuk.org.uk and so other sevices provide a more comprehensive lookup. BankAccountChecker is one of the self contained checkers but while it is avertised with with its own .com domain, it is accessed via alainorset.com as the other one redirects to a car parts website. AH - http://www.bankaccountchecker.com/ works, but without www. it reirects. Another avenue to validate data is via IBAN which uses similar data to EISCD to check sort code and account number across 37 countries. This may actually be the right way forward in future rather than just limiting things to a UK lookup. It still tickles me that my own IBAN account number still has MIDLGB as the bank ID. Looks like nobody thought to add a mechanism to handle change of ownership of banks.

There are a few options still to investigate and this is still a work in progress.

Software Suppliers
Unified Software - Bacs payments, sort code finder and account checker specialists. With lower prices on some of the annual licences.
Mosaic Software - Bacs Approved Software Supplier. Packages include PostcodeIT in addition to the various banking packages including DD Management.
Programmable Web - Github like code development directory including BankAccountChecker in it's listings amongs other tools.
PCA Predict - 'World leading checkout optimisation and data cleansing suite' - online tools for a range of valitation checks

Now some of the convusion makes sense ... IBAN only actually covers some 37 countries and excludes the USA - Map of users