The Universal Numerical System In 1910 the transit managers from a number of the clearing houses of the leading cities, under the auspices of the clearing house section of the American Bankers' Association, devised a system of numbering the banks, universal in scope, for transit purposes. It is called the "universal numerical system" and was adopted in 1911. Numbers are assigned to states, cities, and the Treasurer of the United States; to certain post-offices, express companies, railroads, and firms upon which checks are drawn; and to every bank, banker, and trust company in the United States authorized to do a general banking business. The local banks may carry the system further and assign numbers to its customers.
Numbers called "prefix" numbers are assigned to cities and states. Forty-nine such numbers were assigned, in the order of population in 191o, to the leading collection centers including the reserve and central reserve cities and Buffalo and Memphis.
Brooklyn is considered part of New York City; Kansas City, Kansas, of Kansas City, Missouri; and South Omaha of Omaha.
The states were divided into five sections, the eastern, the southeastern, the central, the southwestern, and western. In each section the state containing the leading collection centers was placed at the head and the other states arranged in alpha betical order. The prefix numbers from 5o to 58 inclusive were assigned to the eastern section, beginning with New York; and since New York City, Buffalo, and Albany had numbers as re serve cities, the numbcr 5o applies to Rochester, which was fourth in population, and to cities of smaller population. The south eastern section was assigned numbers 6o to 69 inclusive, begin ning with Pennsylvania, and again the number 6o began with the largest city not included in the reserve cities already numbered, namely Scranton. The central section was given numbers 7o to 79, beginning with Illinois and Peoria; the south western section numbers 8o to 88, beginning with Missouri and Springfield; and the western section, numbers 90 to 99, beginning with California and Oakland. The numbers 59 and 89 were left should it become necessary to number the banks of our national dependencies. The idea in grouping the states is to aid in memo rizing the numbers; the idea in assessing the first number to begin with the leading city, not otherwise numbered, in the state was to make possible the designation of 99 cities and the states as well with the 99 numbers, and to give the round number to this state and city; the idea in numbering the cities in the order of their population was that the digits might be assigned to those cities upon which checks are most common.
The banks in the 49 reserve cities and in the 48 other cities heading the list taking the state number were numbered according to their clearing house numbers. These numbers have usually been assigned on the basis of seniority; it would be a better arrangement if the numbers were assigned on the basis of size, so that the largest banks would have the digit numbers. The number 1-8 is the National City Bank, as the number assigned New York City is i and this bank is number 8 in the clearing house numbering. The number 50-5 is the Merchants Bank of Rochester, since so is the state prefix for New York State and the city Rochester leads the list and this bank is number 5 in the Rochester Clearing House.
The rest of the banks of the country were numbered as follows: The first numbers were given to the banks in the largest cities and were continued in the relative order of the population of the cities in each state; and each bank was numbered in order according to seniority in each city. The one-bank towns were numbered last, and the banks in them were numbered in alphabetical order ac cording to towns. Certain blank numbers were left in cities with populations of so,000 and higher, the larger the city the more the blanks; these will be filled as the banks are founded. A "Key to Numerical System of the American Bankers' Association" is published by the Association.
This is a labor-saving device. Every bank has a distinctive number, and the transit number may be substituted for names and addresses in making transit or other records. It is used in varying degrees by the different banks, but reaches its maximum usefulness only when all checks, drafts, and indorsement stamps bear the numbers so that any bank desiring to use the system may do so. One common use is the "No protest" instructions; the cash letter may contain the instructions to protest items above a certain amount unless they bear an imprint of the "No protest" stamp; this stamp would read " N.P. 50-5," if used by the Merchants Bank of Rochester. By this means the sorting of items by the collecting bank is greatly facilitated.