Is the number on the special seal for bills of exchange a line number?

The style of special seals for bills of exchange of all banks shall be stipulated by the People's Bank of China and supervised by the People's Bank of China. The number 12 on the special seal for bills of exchange is the bank institution code (that is, the bank number of each bank in China's modern payment system).

Regarding the production and use of the special seal for bank drafts, the General Office of the People's Bank of China has issued a document "Notice on Standardizing the Matters Concerning the Special Seal for Bank Bills" for standardization.

The following is the relevant contents of the document-

Notice of the General Office of the People's Bank of China on Standardizing the Special Seal for Bank Bills (Yinfa [2006] No.54)

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1. Style of special seal. The special seal is circular, with a diameter of 3cm, and must have the words "Special Seal for Bills of Exchange" and the banking institution code of 12 digits (see Annex 1). The Chinese characters printed in the special seal should be simplified characters published in Song Dynasty and the State Council, but the line names can be Song Dynasty or the style of each line. Among them, the names published in the special seals of policy banks, state-owned commercial banks, joint-stock commercial banks, city commercial banks, city cooperative banks, rural commercial banks, rural cooperative banks and foreign-funded banks are called their legal names; The names published in the special seals of urban credit cooperatives and rural credit cooperatives are unified as "Urban Credit Cooperatives" and "Rural Credit Cooperatives Union" respectively. If there are too many words in the name published in the special seal, it is difficult to engrave, and a standardized abbreviation can be used.

Policy banks, state-owned commercial banks, joint-stock commercial banks and city commercial banks joining the capital settlement center of city commercial banks can determine the style of special seals by their head offices or capital settlement centers of city commercial banks according to the requirements of the People's Bank of China, and report to the head office of China People's Bank for the record. For the styles of special seals of urban cooperative banks, rural commercial banks, rural cooperative banks, foreign-funded banks and urban commercial banks that have not joined the capital settlement center of urban commercial banks, refer to Annex 1, which shall be determined by the banks themselves and reported to the local branches of the People's Bank of China for the record (Shanghai area shall be reported to Shanghai headquarters for the record). The style of special seals for urban credit cooperatives and rural credit cooperatives shall be uniformly stipulated by the People's Bank of China (see the attached table for the contents and configuration of seals).

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