The Extended Industry Sort Code Directory
Minimise your organisations incidence of unpaid Direct Debits and unapplied
Bacs Direct Credits by downloading up to date sort code data more
frequently
The Extended Industry Sort Code Directory (EICSD) is the new version of the
Industry Sort Code Directory (ISCD) - a downloadable database containing
information about all payment service providers (PSP) that are connected to the UK
clearing systems. These include Bacs, Faster Payments, CHAPS Sterling and Cheque
and Credit Clearing.
The EISCD contains the following information relating to PSP offices or branches:
Sort code
Bank office identifier (BIC)
Branch title
Clearings the bank office participates in, including settlement information
Postal address
Telephone number.
Common uses of it are:
Checking account details in electronic payments, and so reducing the number of returned payments and the costly correction process
Checking whether a particular bank office accepts specific types of Bacs transactions
Accessing address and telephone number information, for example, Direct Debit Instructions, with address details
Accessing BIC information for UK bank offices.
It is possible that you may already be accessing the EISCD via your existing Bacs software solution. If you are unsure about this check with your solution supplier.
If you are not making use of it via your solution supplier, find out more about EISCD.
The quarterly fee enables you to download the data as frequently as you wish. You should download the EISCD at least once a month, however, the recommended frequency for downloading is weekly to ensure your systems have the latest possible information.
And as from 2012 the time taken to add a new sort code to the EISCD fell from 17 weeks to 6 weeks - it's even more important to ensure you frequently take updates of the information held in the database.
Visit EISCD for further information and to sign up to receive downloads.