Who publishes Bank Code Lookup, and how
Bank Code Lookup is published by Joseph Ellul, operating from San Gwann, Malta. It is a small independent reference site, not a bank, a payment institution or a directory licensee.
Why this site exists
Most pages that answer these questions are either a bank telling you about its own account, or a lookup site republishing a licensed directory without saying where any of it came from. This site does the third thing: it reads the banks' own published pages, quotes what they say word for word, records the date it read them, and says plainly when a bank publishes nothing at all.
Who it is for
It is written for one person: someone in the United Kingdom or the United States who has been handed a sort code, a SWIFT/BIC code, an IBAN or a nine-digit routing number and needs to understand it, find their own, or sanity-check the one in front of them before money moves.
What it does not do
- It never publishes an identifier it cannot attribute to a page the institution published itself. Where a bank does not state its own code, the entry says so instead of filling the gap from a third-party list.
- It does not republish a licensed directory. SWIFT's BIC directory and the UK's Extended Industry Sort Code Directory are licensed products, and copying them would make this site a reseller of somebody else's data rather than a reader of primary sources.
- It gives no financial advice, makes no best-rate claim, and never tells you which account to open or which provider is cheapest for you.
- It never asks for your account number, your card details or your online banking credentials, and no page here will ever tell you to move money to keep it safe.
What is on this site
8 guides, each with its sources on the page , 48 answers to the questions around them , and the finder.
- What is a sort code: A sort code is the six-digit number that identifies a UK bank and the branch or division holding an account.
- What is a SWIFT code: A SWIFT code identifies a bank, not an account.
- What is the bank identification code: In the United States, bank identification code is almost always someone's way of asking for the nine-digit routing number.
- What is an IBAN number UK: A UK IBAN is 22 characters long and it contains your sort code and account number unchanged, with a country code, two check digits and a four-letter bank code added in front.
- Account number and sort code: Every UK payment needs exactly two numbers from the payee: a six-digit sort code that names the bank and branch, and an eight-digit account number that names the account inside it.
- Bank SWIFT code: Most banks publish their own SWIFT code openly, because a customer abroad cannot pay them without it.
- Bank sort code checker: People reach for a sort code checker at one particular moment: an invoice has arrived, the bank details are new, and something needs verifying before money leaves.
- Sort code finder: Two different people search for a sort code finder.
Where the figures come from
Every identifier here was read on the bank's own published page through the estate fetch service on 2026-09-11, quoted verbatim and hash-pinned to the page text at retrieval. No licensed directory (SWIFT's BIC directory, Vocalink's EISCD) is republished.
Who answers for it
Joseph Ellul, Publisher and editor.
Reach us
Contact for a question about the site, or contact@bankcodelookup.com. The legal terms are on Terms and Privacy.