Harmonization of Bank Account Numbers in India – BBAN structure announced

            At present, there is no defined common structure for generating Bank account numbers by the individual banks. Each Bank follows its own internal guidelines.

The structure of the Bank accounts underwent a sea-change with the introduction of CBS. At present, CBS has been implemented in all the banks.

            At various forums, the bank customers and also RBI were veering towards the idea of a common bank account number structure across the banking industry.

The major benefit of such standardization is the 100% STP of ePayments. Towards this end, RBI decided to constitute a Committee “to examine Uniform routing code and account number structure” for banks in India, in the Second Quarter Review of Monetary Policy 2012-13 on October 30, 2012, (para 122).

The Committee has since been announced and the committee was required to submit its report by end-December 2012. The report has since been submitted.

One of the main recommendations of the committee is the structure of the BBAN (Basic Bank Account Number). BBAN will be a subset of the IBAN (International Bank Account Number).

The BBAN will be 18 digits long. No,the banks need not change their existing account numbers. It has observed that the Bank account numbers in India range from 6 digits to 18 digits. Hence, any Bank with account number less than 18 digits, will pad the account number with ZEROS.  

The implementation date is not yet announced as RBI has just released the committee report and requested for public comments on the same. However, the Banks have a window of 3 years for fully migrating to the BBAN.

            It is envisaged that if the IBAN is not in the standard format, the ePayment will be rejected at the Originating point itself thereby minimizing customer discomfort.