One of the design aims of the IBAN was to enable as much validation as possible to be done at the point of data entry. The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an international standard for identifying bank accounts across national borders with a minimal risk of propagating transcription errors. This often led to necessary routing information being missing from payments. Those countries which use International Bank Account Numbers (IBAN) have mostly integrated the bank code into the prefix of specifying IBAN account numbers.
The simple search facility enables you to check bank sort codes, branch addresses, contact details and BIC codes, as well as identifying which banks and institutions accept faster payments.
The sort code, which is a six-digit number, is usually formatted as three pairs of numbers, for example 12-34-56.