Sort Code for Sterling Bank in Nigeria Varies by Branch

Look along the magnetic-ink numbers near the bottom of a Sterling Bank cheque leaf for a group of nine digits beginning 232. That group is your sort code. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) cheque rules make it part of every cheque, on a line that can also carry the bank’s routing number, the account number and the cheque number.

No public list will give it to you. Sterling Bank does not publish its branch sort codes anywhere we could read, and neither does the CBN or the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS). A wrong sort code on a form does more harm than a missing one, so take it from the leaf or from the bank.

Getting it from Sterling without a cheque book

Ask at the branch that holds your account. A sort code belongs to a branch, and the one you need is where the account is kept, which may not be the branch nearest to you.

Customer care can also tell you. Sterling’s contact page lists two phone lines, 02018888822 and 07008220000, the email address [email protected], and a WhatsApp line. Have the account number to hand. We found no Sterling page saying that its app or its USSD menu shows the sort code, so do not count on either.

When a branch has closed or moved, do not reuse its old code from memory or from a list. Ask the bank which branch holds your account now, and what that branch’s code is.

What a Sterling code should start with

The CBN’s standards on bank account numbers split the nine digits into three for the bank, which the CBN assigns, two for the state the branch is in, three for the branch and one check digit, worked out from the other eight by a set formula. Sterling’s bank code, in the CBN’s own paper on the account-number scheme, is 232. That is only the start of a sort code, and your ten-digit account number is something else again.

That gives you a quick test for any code you are handed: nine digits, starting as the table shows for the branch’s state. The last four depend on the branch.

Those state pairs come from a circular the CBN sent to every bank and to NIBSS on 7 November 2018. It said each branch’s code must carry the code of its own state, and that banks which kept using another state’s code would be sanctioned.

Lists still copied around the internet show Sterling’s Aba branch with Imo’s state code and four Onitsha branches with Enugu’s. Codes like those had to change, and nobody outside the bank can tell you which ones did. Matching the table does not prove a code is right either. It only catches the obvious mistakes, and a list that is mostly right is the dangerous kind, because nothing about it looks wrong.

Sterling Bank or The Alternative Bank

The bank now signs itself Sterling Bank Ltd. It belongs to Sterling Financial Holdings Company, whose shares replaced Sterling Bank’s on the Nigerian Exchange in April 2023. The holding company’s second bank, The Alternative Bank, does non-interest banking and is separate, so none of this applies to it. Sterling’s own history page records no merger after 2012.

Its branch and ATM locator lists 131 full branches, 18 cash centres and 18 ATM-only points, each with its address and none with a sort code.

For other banks, see our pages on Union Bank, Ecobank and FCMB.