SEDOL stands for Stock Exchange Daily Official List, a list of security

Security (finance)

A security is generally a fungible, negotiable financial instrument representing financial value. Securities are broadly categorized into:* debt securities ,* equity securities, e.g., common stocks; and,...

 identifiers used in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

  and Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 for clearing purposes. The numbers are assigned by the London Stock Exchange

London Stock Exchange

The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...

, on request by the security issuer. SEDOLs serve as the National Securities Identifying Number

NSIN

A National Securities Identifying Number or NSIN is a generic nine-digit alpha numeric code which identifies a fungible security. The NSIN is issued by a national numbering agency designated for that country. Regional substitute NNAs have been allocated the task of functioning as NNAs in those...

 for all securities issued in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and are therefore part of the security's ISIN as well. The SEDOL Masterfile (SMF) provides reference data on millions of global multi-asset securities each uniquely identified at the market level using a universal SEDOL code.

Description

SEDOLs are seven characters in length, consisting of two parts: a six-place alphanumeric code and a trailing check digit

Check digit

A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection, the decimal equivalent of a binary checksum. It consists of a single digit computed from the other digits in the message....

. SEDOLs issued prior to January 26, 2004 were composed only of numbers. For those older SEDOLs, those from Asia and Africa typically begin with 6, those from the UK and Ireland (until Ireland joined the EU) typically begin with 0 or 3 those from Europe typically began with 4, 5 or 7 and those from the Americas began with 2. After January 26, 2004, SEDOLs were changed to be alpha-numeric and are issued sequentially, beginning with B000009. At each character position numbers precede letters and vowels are never used. All new SEDOLs, therefore, begin with a letter. Ranges beginning with 9 are reserved for end user allocation.

The check digit for a SEDOL is chosen to make the total weighted sum of all seven characters a multiple of 10. The check digit is computed using a weighted sum of the first six characters. Letters have the value of 9 plus their alphabet position, such that B = 11 and Z = 35. While vowels are never used in SEDOLs, they are not ignored when computing this weighted sum (e.g. H = 17 and J = 19, even though I is not used), simplifying code to compute this sum. The resulting string of numbers is then multiplied by the weighting factor as follows:

First 1
Second 3
Third 1
Fourth 7
Fifth 3
Sixth 9
Seventh 1 (the check digit)

The character values are multiplied by the weights. The check digit is chosen to make the total sum, including the check digit, a multiple of 10, which can be calculated from the weighted sum of the first six characters as (10 − (weighted sum modulo

Modulo operation

In computing, the modulo operation finds the remainder of division of one number by another.Given two positive numbers, and , a modulo n can be thought of as the remainder, on division of a by n...

 10)) modulo

Modulo operation

In computing, the modulo operation finds the remainder of division of one number by another.Given two positive numbers, and , a modulo n can be thought of as the remainder, on division of a by n...

 10.

For British and Irish securities, SEDOLs are converted to ISINs by padding the front with two zeros, then adding the country code on the front and the ISIN check digit at the end.

JavaScript codes for validating SEDOLs Code:

Modified from http://rosettacode.org/wiki/SEDOLs

function checkSedol(text){
var weight = [1, 3, 1, 7, 3, 9, 1];
try{
var input = text.substr(0,6);
var check_digit = sedol_check_digit(input);
return text

input + check_digit;
}catch(e){
return false;
}
return false;

function sedol_check_digit(char6) {
if (char6.search(/^[0-9BCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ]{6}$/)

-1){
throw "Invalid SEDOL number '" + char6 + "'";
}
var sum = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < char6.length; i++){
sum += weight[i] * parseInt(char6.charAt(i), 36);
}
var check = (10 - sum%10) % 10;
return check.toString;
}
}

Example

BAE Systems

BAE Systems

BAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security and aerospace company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that has global interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is among the world's largest military contractors; in 2009 it was the...

: 0263494

The checksum can be calculated by multiplying the first six digits by their weightings:

(0×1, 2×3, 6×1, 3×7, 4×3, 9×9) = (0, 6, 6, 21, 12, 81)

Then summing up the results:

0 + 6 + 6 + 21 + 12 + 81 = 126

The check digit is then calculated by:

(10 − (126 modulo

Modulo operation

In computing, the modulo operation finds the remainder of division of one number by another.Given two positive numbers, and , a modulo n can be thought of as the remainder, on division of a by n...

 10)) = (10 − 6) = 4

External links

• London Stock Exchange
  London Stock Exchange
  The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
  
   - SEDOL Masterfile
• SEDOL on Rosetta Code
  Rosetta Code
  Rosetta Code is a wiki-based programming chrestomathy website with solutions to various programming problems in many different programming languages. It was created in 2007 by Mike Mol. Rosetta Code includes 450 programming tasks, and covers 351 programming languages...
  
  . Check digit calculation in more than 35 different computer programming languages.