Bank Account number portability

The Independent Banking Commission produced its interim report today - and made recommendations about full account number portability.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5011176/11_04_11_ibc_report.pdf

5.17 Beyond improvements to the existing system, full account number portability would enable customers to change banking service providers without changing their bank account number. This would remove the need to transfer direct debits and standing orders, which remains the main area where problems may arise. In the past, portability has been rejected as overly costly, but if no other solutions appear effective and practicable, it should be reconsidered to see if this remains the case given improvements in IT and the payments system infrastructure.

What an excellent idea and the IBC probably dont realise it yet - but the technology to do this is already there and deployed globally. I am a "serialised item identification" expert and this was my last project !!

The first thing is to use the ISO Licence Plate number concept for the account numbers and use "EPCIS" middleware from the RFID world for "Authentication" and "Trust" credentials. QR Codes and NFC can be used to hold the number in a form that allows it to be easily used.

This would really be the opportunity to bring Banking completely up to date and fully compatible with the latest eServices.