Following its acquisition of CB.Net earlier this year, payments reference data vendor Accuity has now begun work with the Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO) to provide services to manage its National Sort Code (NSC) Directory. The vendor has already implemented the European Payments Council (EPC) Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Register of Participants and the European Banking Association (EBA) Priority Payments Central Repository and is now working to help IPSO develop the new management system for its NSC database.
The NSC data includes bank sort code numbers and related bank branch information used by IPSO members in payment systems and clearing in the Republic of Ireland. The database is available through a web search facility and through standard download formats.
Accuity/CB.Net is providing the infrastructure through its CodeX Code Management platform. IPSO hopes that it and its member banks will be able to manage the sort code database in a faster and far more efficient way as a result of the implementation. IPSO will therefore maintain administrative control over the system but allow members to access and update their own information.
Pat McLoughlin CEO of IPSO, explains the benefits of the new system: “Banks will be able to update their back office systems more readily and up to the minute branch details will be available to the banks’ corporate customers enhancing their payment straight through processing capabilities and reducing rejected payments.”
Possible future enhancements include making the NSC database SEPA compliant with the addition of identifying and routing BICs.
