MSE News: Public 'backs portable bank account numbers'

Biggles

This looks like the result of a badly carried out survey with poorly chosen questions.

There is no benefit to 'making account numbers portable'. To liken them to mobile numbers is ridiculous; people get used to a mobile number and are being asked to quote it all the time, and when you get used to yours, you want to hang onto it. I'm only asked my bank account number when I'm dealing with banking and would have it to hand (sure, I do have my 'main current a/c' number in my head but none of the other dozen or so).

I imagine the question most people thought they were answering is, "Would you like it if your bank account, together with DDs, SOs etc, were easily transportable to a different bank at the drop of a hat?". So most people said, "Yes". That's nothing to do with account numbers.

The solution is in the hands of the banks and requires a significant improvement to the current system for transferring DDs & SOs (which seems to be the stumbling block for most people).

Pincher

They will naturally bring in "security features for YOUR protection".

Just like your credit card gets frozen when you are in New York,
you will find the portable account computer has identified your account activity as suspicious.

Foreign students who get a lump sum in the beginning of study will have to PROVE the money came from their parents in say Korea, and the staff in Swansea can't read anything in Korean, so they ask for a translated version at the student's expense. They ask this a month after the term has started, of course, because of all the backlog the trigger happy computer generates.

CLAPTON

Biggles wrote: »

This looks like the result of a badly carried out survey with poorly chosen questions.

There is no benefit to 'making account numbers portable'. To liken them to mobile numbers is ridiculous; people get used to a mobile number and are being asked to quote it all the time, and when you get used to yours, you want to hang onto it. I'm only asked my bank account number when I'm dealing with banking and would have it to hand (sure, I do have my 'main current a/c' number in my head but none of the other dozen or so).

I imagine the question most people thought they were answering is, "Would you like it if your bank account, together with DDs, SOs etc, were easily transportable to a different bank at the drop of a hat?". So most people said, "Yes". That's nothing to do with account numbers.

The solution is in the hands of the banks and requires a significant improvement to the current system for transferring DDs & SOs (which seems to be the stumbling block for most people).

good to know your usage and requirements from the banking system exactly matches everyone elses.

realaledrinker

Banks internal systems are based on their own sort codes. Each account is a combination of sort code + account number. You can't just migrate an account number alone as without its sort code; the number will not be unique.

So a bank with 1,000 branches each with a sort code attached has to rebuild its systems to cope with (say) 30,000 potential sort codes.

Also what about building society accounts, many of which do not have an individual account number. Often the account number is 00000000 with the roll number being the identifier - but that's not a number you could transfer.

Not going to happen.

pmduk

CLAPTON wrote: »

it's as absurb as portable phone numbers

the porting of mobile phone numbers is actually very useful and I suspect has increased competition in that industry. I doubt the same would be true in banking, although there would be huge costs involved and the process would probably involve many existing customers having to change their number.

JuicyJesus

Biggles wrote: »

I imagine the question most people thought they were answering is, "Would you like it if your bank account, together with DDs, SOs etc, were easily transportable to a different bank at the drop of a hat?". So most people said, "Yes". That's nothing to do with account numbers.

The solution is in the hands of the banks and requires a significant improvement to the current system for transferring DDs & SOs (which seems to be the stumbling block for most people).

And here we get to the crux of the issue.

Indeed. But 1) many people have more interesting things to do than making up to a dozen telephone calls and then several more to chase up the mistakes; 2) changing information may cause a delay with payment and that may in turn affect service, so you have to time the change correctly. Otherwise you risk late debt repayments or gaps in insurance coverage. For the person not interested in the banking system - i.e. the average person - it's just too much hassle.

Your chances of any problems occurring are an order of magnitude higher if you use anyone other than the originator to change bank details, for myriad different reasons. For architectural and operational reasons (i.e. how the DD system actually intrinsically works) it makes perfect sense, albeit with slightly more inconvenience, to change bank details with the originator, as they are the ones asking to debit a specific bank account.

Most companies will also quite gladly tell you when a switch will be effective from. It's not really rocket science.

I answer an 0207 number even though I'm usually nowhere near London; gone are the days where I could tell what mobile provider someone was with; the IP address I present to the world only occasionally reflects where I am; and these days almost all my bank accounts have a sort code which returns a central customer service address.

The difference is a given telephone number can route to any line, regardless of the actual area code, as this is set by the routing functions of the telephone system. The area code is only meaningful inasmuch as a number with a certain area code is likely to be within a specific area. It causes precisely zero problems for anyone if you have an 0207 area code but you live in Northampton or Cornwall or wherever, save possibly having to pay national rate charges.

Sort codes are different. Each one has a very specific and definite meaning, they specifically identify that the account number attached is definitely held at a specific branch (or location) of a specific bank. If a sort code and account number combination could in fact refer to a bank account held at a different bank from the one it indicates, the system falls apart.

Why? Cheques would surely still have the destination non-virtual account numbers printed on them. BACS/DD simply need a lookup usually on source.

So, you have a "virtual" and "non-virtual" account number. How precisely is having two account numbers for the same account more intuitive or less confusing than, as it is now, every account having a single combination of sort code and account number?

A "lookup on source" adds to overhead for anyone using BACS or DDs, increasing costs, even if such a thing is technically possible without all banks having to subscribe to an entire register of account numbers for different people.

Even if you did use virtual account numbers on cheques (which you wouldn't), the lookup would be just as automated, but take account of account number too. It's not like anyone really looks at cheques when they're cleared any more.

You would be surprised. There is a LOT of human involvement in cheque clearing. It is not anywhere near as automated as you may think.

One or two? I'm glad your household has so few outgoings :-).

I was referring to incoming credits. Most people have one or two. Direct Debits and standing orders can be bulk switched, and portable account numbers will do nothing to assist with this process.

I'm really not seeing any concrete benefits, while seeing an awful lot of drawbacks.

jamesd

pmduk wrote: »

the process would probably involve many existing customers having to change their number.

Sort of. They could presumably use a new BIC and IBAN corresponding to the portable version of their account and have that BIC and IBAN go wherever they want it to go. With a completely new series of identifiers this wouldn't overlap with any of the existing accounts. Still using a new number, but not actually changing any existing ones.

jamesd

JuicyJesus wrote: »

A "lookup on source" adds to overhead for anyone using BACS or DDs, increasing costs, even if such a thing is technically possible without all banks having to subscribe to an entire register of account numbers for different people.

Such a register is hardly a technically challenging project given the capabilities of systems these days.

Add a portable IBAN range, route those initially to a register that forwards the transaction on to the current destination. It's the sort of thing that's done routinely in web systems these days as part of scale out architectures.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

You would be surprised. There is a LOT of human involvement in cheque clearing. It is not anywhere near as automated as you may think.

Likely to be significantly more overhead in that part of the system but portable numbers don't have to involve all parts of the system.

JuicyJesus wrote: »

I was referring to incoming credits. Most people have one or two. Direct Debits and standing orders can be bulk switched, and portable account numbers will do nothing to assist with this process.

Portable account numbers could mean that the account corresponding to the portable number can be changed instantly. In the same sort of way as cell phones change the tower location of a phone instantly as they move around.

Users could also have many portable account numbers and do things like using a different one for payer types that are known to be troublesome so the number could be disabled if needed, without affecting other payments. Given the chance I'd probably allocate a different number to every DD taker. Which is also not technically challenging for computer systems to handle these days.

innovate

I don't get it - what is the benefit of having the same bank account number for life?

How often do people need to know their current account number by heart? Most modern debit cards print the sort code and account number on the front these days, so it's just a matter of remembering where your card is - - - not particularly hard to do since most of us use it all the time, anyway. Banks could perhaps even have a smartphone app from where you can look up your account number(s) - something that would cost next to nothing (in the grander scheme of things) to develop.

People can cope with changing car registration plates, changing credit card numbers, changing phone numbers, changing passport numbers - - why not current account numbers?

And a huge number of people have difficulty remembering all the birthdays and anniversaries - the dates of which never change - they should be remembering. Why would we all want yet more static bits of information to remember?

And how would I retain the same number if I decide to have more than one current account (e.g. to protect myself from NatWest/RBS-style IT meltdowns)?

If the whole issue is about moving Direct Debits - - - there are other, much simpler and more cost-effective, solutions to this issue. The current numbering system is entrenched in a highly complex set of IT systems. The cost of implementing number portability would most likely be quite prohibitive, both in terms of money and duration. Surely we have many lot more pressing and useful improvements to implement (e.g. showing current and historical interest rates for all accounts).

I am once more quite shocked by the way Which? conducts suggestive surveys, apparently in the interest of consumers.

molerat

Much like the arguments over "the question" up here in Scotland, what and how it is asked to get the answer required.

I can see it being, to us an american term, a complete cluster!!!!. Banks seem to have great difficulty migrating an account number within their own systems let alone between organisations.