Yorkshire Bank took place in the bank's heartland and many miners were customers, having been encouraged by the National Coal Board to have their pay mandated to a bank account. In 1990, the National Australia Bank Group acquired the bank from the consortium of owning banks which, after mergers and acquisitions, were the National Westminster Bank, (holders of 40%), Barclays Bank (32%), Lloyds Bank (20%), and Royal Bank of Scotland (8%). The price paid was £1 billion and the bank joined National Australia Bank's other European businesses, Clydesdale Bank (Scotland) and Northern Bank (which operated in both jurisdictions in Ireland). In May
International Bank Account Number IBAN will be sufficient to identify an account for home and foreign financial transactions in SEPA countries and banks will no longer be permitted to require that the customer supply the BIC for the beneficiary's bank. In the run-up to the 1 February 2014 deadline, it became apparent that many old bank account numbers had not been allocated IBANs—an issue that has to be addressed on a country-by-country basis. In Germany, for example, Deutsche Bundesbank and the German Banking Industry Committee require that all holders of German bank codes ("Bankleitzahl") publish the specifics of their IBAN generation format taking into